Melbourne (AP) – Despite her sobering failure in the first round and the worst women’s performance at the Australian Open in 45 years, Angelique Kerber looked combative into the future.
“I’m still passionate about tennis. I hope I can still bring home one or two wins and titles,” said the woman from Kiel when she – on her 34th birthday – was the last German tennis player to retire in Melbourne was.
The 2016 tournament winner took her 4: 6, 3: 6 against the Estonian Kaia Kanepi calmly. From the entire German perspective, her end ensured that none of the initially only three women were represented in the second round of the first Grand Slam tournament. That hadn’t been the case Down Under since 1977, when in completely different tennis times the majority of Australians were at the Australian Open and a German was missing from the tableau from the start.
Petkovic and Maria also fail
If you look at all the Grand Slam tournaments, you don’t have to look back very far for this result: only last year at the French Open in Paris was the end for all German women in round one. Behind the golden generation around Kerber there is a glaring gap, this has been confirmed once again. The three-time Grand Slam winner shared her fate this time with Andrea Petkovic (34) and Tatjana Maria (34).
If Alexander Zverev wants to keep his hopes for the title against Australian John Millman on Wednesday (2nd game after 9 a.m. / Eurosport), Kerber wants to celebrate her birthday. “I think health is the most important thing at the moment,” said the number 20 in the world when asked about her wishes for the day of honor.
The corona virus thwarted her preparation plans in December. She had a fever, no taste either, she even worried about her participation in the Australian Open. She had traveled to Melbourne with low expectations, she had reported a few days before the performance, which was far too faulty, with frequent hesitation and rare successful shots.
Lack of match practice
Against the 36-year-old Kanepi, who is past her best, she felt a lack of training hours. “I haven’t noticed the consequences of Corona now, but I noticed that I was maybe a step too slow, I made mistakes that were too easy. Of course I lacked the match practice,” she explained.
It’s been six years since her first of what are now three Grand Slam titles ushered in a fantastic 2016 season. For the left-hander, it was the end of the first round Down Under for the second time in a row. In 2021 she had just spent two weeks in strict quarantine because of Corona. Last summer she showed with the semi-finals in Wimbledon that she can still be expected to be successful in the Grand Slam events on good days.
Nevertheless, the question of the end of a career is increasingly being asked at Kerber. Similar to the men at Philipp Kohlschreiber. While Jan-Lennard Struff (against the Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp) and Maximilian Marterer (against Taylor Fritz from the USA) failed like Kerber on the second day of the tournament, the veteran secured a second challenge. Thanks to the 6: 4, 7: 5, 7: 6 (7: 0) against the Italian Marco Cecchinato, the Augsburger moved into the second round as the fifth German in the men’s game.
“I certainly wrote down a few great moments for the tournament here or for myself,” the 38-year-old recalled of all his participations in Australia since 2005. A win against the 15th-seeded Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut for seems completely out of reach not being him on Thursday. And until Wimbledon, Kohlschreiber will definitely “go full throttle”.
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