Tennis Emotional Kerber leaves Wimbledon return open
Angelique Kerber leaves the possibility of participating in Wimbledon next year open. Photo
© Steven Paston/PA Wire/dpa
Angelique Kerber ended a disastrous grass-court season with a first-round exit at Wimbledon. She has not yet given a clear answer as to whether she will return to London as a participant. Her next goal is clear.
Angelique Kerber sat there with shining eyes and left the question of her future open. Shortly after her sobering first-round exit at Wimbledon, the 36-year-old was confronted with the approaching end of her career and answered neither yes nor no as to whether this was her last Wimbledon appearance.
“I don’t know. I didn’t come here with that in mind,” said the former world number one, as she was still digesting the low point of her beloved but this time dismal grass season. Kerber neither clearly said ‘Yes, it was my last match on the sacred grass’ nor ‘No, I want to be back in 2025’. After the match, it was perhaps too early to ask such a question.
Kerber would have liked to extend her Wimbledon appearance, as her training partner at Church Road, Jule Niemeier, managed to do. The Dortmund player impressively withstood the rain chaos and moved into the second round late with a surprisingly clear 6:2, 6:1 win against the Swiss Viktorija Golubic.
Her opening match was actually scheduled for Tuesday, like Kerber’s match, but was postponed due to the rain that kept coming. On Wednesday, the start of the match was then postponed by a total of two hours and the match was briefly interrupted. In 2022, Niemeier wrote her own Wimbledon success story by reaching the quarterfinals.
“My Tournament”
Kerber, the 2018 tournament winner, spoke emotionally about her Wimbledon story. “When I look at Wimbledon, it feels like my tournament,” said Kerber. “I’m always happy to come here. I still have the best moments in my mind, and that will stay that way regardless of the match.”
Half a year after the end of her maternity leave, the grass season was supposed to be a highlight for her. But she hasn’t won a single one of her three matches on the green surface. If you add in the early French Open exit, she has suffered four first-round defeats in a row.
Kerber has already experienced several ups and downs
Despite the defeats, she is not losing her sense of fun, the three-time Grand Slam tournament winner made clear. “I’m already hardened to that,” said the Kiel native, referring to the many ups and downs that have accompanied her tennis career for a long time. In fact, Kerber has already proven several times that she can come back strong after setbacks.
Defeats don’t hurt her quite as much anymore since she became a mother to little Liana. Kerber has said this several times. But it was clear that she doesn’t care about the results at all when she threw herself down on the table in front of her with her arms and put her Wimbledon ID card down next to her. She looked dejected.
It remains to be seen whether the match against Kazakhstani Yulia Putintseva will be the last chapter in her glorious Wimbledon history, with her triumph in 2018 and the final in 2016. At the moment she lacks security, self-confidence and match practice. Kerber is still waiting for a win after the third Grand Slam tournament of the year.
If the former world number one retires at some point, the gap in German women’s tennis could become even more obvious. For years, it has been a topic that the next generation is missing and the situation is worrying.
Kerber goes on medal hunt in Paris
In addition to Niemeier (24), of the six German women in singles, only Laura Siegemund made it to the second round. Like Kerber, the Swabian is 36 years old. On Thursday, she faces a major challenge in the grass court classic against the 2022 Wimbledon champion, Jelena Rybakina from Kazakhstan.
Kerber and Siegemund are planning to compete in the doubles at the Olympic Games. The Summer Games in Paris are Kerber’s next big goal. She will have to get used to the less popular clay court by the end of July. The US Open in New York at the end of August will then offer the last chance to not end the year without a victory at Grand Slam level.
dpa
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