level 12
German tennis yearns for a champion that might yet bring more Grand Slam glory to a nation starved of major silverware since Boris Becker’s Australian Open triumph in 1996. Having shaved more than 300 places off his ranking since the start of 2011, Cedrik-Marcel Stebe is a young German on the rise and dreaming big.
Tennis is lucky to have Cedrik-Marcel Stebe. A linguist, pianist, golfer, drummer and footballer, it wasn’t until he was 13 that he settled on tennis, a sport he was introduced to by his family when he was just three years old. But the multi-talented German continues to keep life fresh away from the court with a multitude of diverse activities, and looks forward to the day he can resume his education, sacrificed as a teenager so he could focus on his tennis.
A good decision it proved to be as Stebe has been one of the fastest risers on the ATP World Tour in the past 15 months. A year ago February, the German was floundering outside the Top 400, having been sidelined from action due to a lower back injury. He now finds himself inside the Top 100 after a breakthrough 2011, which saw his tutelage under theSchuettler-Waske Tennis University come to fruition.
After training blocks in Italy and Spain, Stebe began to work with Rainer Schuettler, Alexander Waske and the coaches at the Frankfurt-based Tennis University in October 2010. He instantly stood out as a player with potential. In his own words, he is "a good all-rounder. I can play on any surface. I have solid shots, no weaknesses. I’m a tough player, I always fight until the end, and I don’t give up at any time.""It was how clean he hits the ball; it’s not normal."
"Alex Waske and me, when we saw Cedrik for the first time, we said, 'That’s a Top 100 player very soon,'" remembers Benjamin Ebrahimzadeh, Head Coach at the Academy. “He was injured, he couldn’t move, and it took us two and a half months to get his body ready. But we could see straight away that there was a lot of potential.
"It was how clean he hits the ball; it’s not normal. He can hit the ball so fast and he’s a skinny guy and every single shot is clean. For me, that’s one of the best things he has."
Waske continues, "We saw huge potential in him, and were aware that it could go very fast with him. In practice sessions he played unbelievably well at times, and we needed to get that form on the match courts."Once fit, Stebe was trained in an intensive seven-week block at the start of the 2011 season. When unleashed on Tour, he reeled off a 17-0 match record with two Futures titles and a runner-up showing at a Challenger event in Kyoto.
"He was 17-0, head to head with Djokovic back then," jokes Waske. "After that he trusted us a lot and we were basically able to change things quickly because he never asked why, he just did it."
According to Stebe, the turning point for the year came during his qualifying campaign for The Championships at Wimbledon. He secured his place in the main draw of a major tournament for the first time after edging upcoming American Ryan Harrison over five sets in a rain-delayed three-day battle. He would go on to lose to Grigor Dimitrov in three tight sets in the first round, but he says, "It gave me such a good feeling and confidence boost. I said 'OK, I can play with those guys'"."Whenever he goes on court he takes something out and that’s something special."