Philipp Kohlschreiber once jokingly described himself as “the best training partner in the world”.
Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka – the stars of the tennis industry all liked to practice with the man from Augsburg during the tournaments. Because they knew what they were getting: a player who always performed highly professionally and consistently. An achievement that made him 16th in the world rankings ten years ago. With which he won eight tournaments and was among the top 50 in the world for years.
Retired after 20 years on tour
Kohlschreiber, who was always reliable during the transition phase of German men’s tennis between Tommy Haas and Alexander Zverev, has now ended his career. On Wednesday, the 38-year-old lost in the second round of qualifying for the grass classic in Wimbledon against the Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin 7: 6 (7: 4), 3: 6, 4: 6 and thus missed a last qualification for a Grand Slam Tournament. At the beginning of the week Kohlschreiber announced that he would end his career after Wimbledon.
The last match of his career lasted 2:18 hours. Once again Kohlschreiber braced himself against the end. When the score was 2:5 in the third set, he fended off a match point and came back to 4:5. But then the moment had come, which he had felt for a long time, but which he had not officially announced until the beginning of this week. Kohlschreiber’s career ended in the relatively unknown Roehampton.