The proverbial phrase “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” was certainly Joana Heidrich’s and Anouk Vergé-Dépré’s mantra in 2020. The Swiss were among the teams which played in fewer tournaments in the shortened season, but they had great results in all of them.
Their biggest success in the year came this weekend, in Jurmala, Latvia, where they secured their first European title, winning arguably the most important tournament in their season and taking their country to the top of the podium of the most important continental event in the season for the first time since 2004, when Nicole Schnyder-Benoit and Simone Kuhn won the title.
Partners since 2017, Joana and Anouk needed all three sets (18-21, 21-14, 18-16) to defeat Germans Kim Behrens and Cinja Tillmann in the final. It was their second title in just four tournaments played in 2020, joining their victory at the German Tour in Düsseldorf. In the other two, a one-star World Tour stop in Baden, Austria, and the King of the Court in Utrecht, the Netherlands, they made it to the final.
“It was such a tough game, they served extremely well,” Anouk commented about their triumph. “We just knew that we had to keep going, keep pushing and pushing and we are so happy we managed to do that.”
Behrens and Tillmann also had a fantastic week in Jurmala. The Germans weren’t in the original entry list of the tournament until last week, when compatriots Karla Borger and Julia Sude needed to pull out due to injury, opening a spot for them to be in the tournament. They made the most of the opportunity and advanced all the way to the final.
The bronze medal in Jurmala went to Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina. The Russian rising stars upset Czech Olympians Marketá Sluková and Barbora Hermmanová in the two-set (25-23, 21-18) in the third-place match.
