The small badge opens doors. Angelique Kerber wears it on her training jacket. As a former winner, she is a member of the exclusive All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, receives tickets, is allowed to use selected areas of the facility and can train for free for life.
But her status no longer takes her to the really big courts. In her first round match, the 36-year-old German had to play on Court 12, the southernmost court on the course, and after the 5:7, 3:6 defeat against Kazakh Yulia Putintseva, it was clear that she would not be playing on a bigger court at Wimbledon this year.
The German was quite disappointed afterwards. “I almost didn’t get into my rhythm at all, I made too many easy mistakes in the important moments,” said Kerber, who was knocked out in the first round of her last four tournaments. Three times on grass, her favorite surface.
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Her sights are now already set on the Olympics. There she will compete in doubles with Laura Siegemund. Kerber has also been nominated for the singles, as the DTB recently announced. The Kiel native does not yet know whether she will play in another tournament beforehand. “It was not the plan, but we’ll see,” said Kerber. Hopes for a turnaround are rather slim.
“I still enjoy tennis”
In Paris, the court will be played on clay, Kerber’s weakest surface. Doubles is not one of her forte either. And after that? “I still enjoy tennis,” she confirmed, but when asked if this was her last appearance at Wimbledon, Kerber had no answer: “I don’t know. I didn’t come here with those thoughts.”
That didn’t sound like the most successful German tennis player of recent years was thinking about concrete farewell scenarios. But it wouldn’t be surprising if Kerber was pondering whether she was on the right path after her maternity leave and her return to the tour in December.
Now and then the old class flashed up
She has lost 14 of her 21 matches this year. In Indian Wells and Rome she reached the round of 16. Otherwise she was always eliminated in the first round. In Wimbledon her opponent dictated the rallies. Kerber was not bad in the game, showing flashes of her old class now and again. But Putintseva seemed a little bit better in many areas, made fewer mistakes, was more consistent and above all more aggressive.
Kerber currently benefits from the so-called “Protected Ranking,” which guarantees her a certain number of tournaments on the WTA women’s professional tour, in which she can play with her old world ranking position from before her break (31). This will no longer apply next year at the latest. Then Kerber, currently number 221 in the world, would have to rely on her old merits to open doors for her, as they did recently at Wimbledon: the organizers had given her a wildcard.
