Ms. Petkovic, how difficult was it for you to decide not to participate in the US Open in New York?
Very difficult. I spent a whole week thinking about what to do, whether to fly or not. I trained, and then my knee swelled a bit again, not bad, but I had to reduce the amount of training and could no longer play twice a day, only once. At the end of the day, that was one of the reasons to say I am giving up New York. It was fifty-fifty. If I had been 100 percent fit, I would probably have made a different decision, but the combination of risk, corona, long-haul flight and the knee ultimately made the difference. What I was most afraid of was that for whatever reason I would test positive there and have to be quarantined, which the players would put in spatial quarantine for a fortnight if the worst came to the worst. Then I would not have come to Europe in time for the clay court tournaments, which are my hobbyhorse, especially the French Open, which I absolutely want to play. Also, my sister is getting married in mid-September, so I didn’t really want to be in quarantine in New York.
You have many friends in New York, and over the years the city has become a kind of second home to you. How did this affect your decision?
Maybe it even made the decision a little easier because I knew if I were there it would have nothing to do with the New York that I love. I couldn’t have seen any of my friends, I couldn’t have stayed with my boyfriend in Brooklyn, I would have lived in a bubble in the hotel.
You last played in Berlin and Prague, with good results. You might have come a long way at the US Open, partly because some of the top players canceled.
Yes, I played well. In Prague I beat Karolina Pliskova (number three in the world rankings, i.e. Red). When more and more players canceled for New York, I thought: Hey, maybe you have a chance to get really far. My emotions really wanted to play and take the chance. But the head was against it in the end. It was a close victory. It was about 0.5 percent.
How much does the sporting value of the New York tournament suffer from the many cancellations?
I think in the end it will be like this: If someone wins the US Open for the very first time, someone who nobody had on the bill, let’s say I accidentally won it, everyone would say: That’s not one either Wonder, because so many did not play along. But if established players win, Djokovic or Williams for example, then in five years no one will care anymore who was missing everything.
You will be 33 years old in early September and will no longer play the tour forever. Does that make giving up a potentially great opportunity even more difficult?
When you get older and you know you won’t play that long, then you play for special moments. Matches in large stadiums. But because there won’t be an audience at the US Open now, that made the decision a bit easier for me. I said, okay, I don’t have many Grand Slams left, but a Grand Slam without an audience, is that really necessary?
How is it without a spectator, how much is lost on the pitch without them?
So without a spectator? I followed the Cincinnati tournament, we have this WTA TV where we can watch all the matches, and that was funny, it seemed so unimportant, even though it’s one of the most important tournaments for us every year. This time I partially fell asleep. But maybe there is also a habituation effect, like with football.
What happens now?
I take a few days off so that my knee can calm down a bit. Then I start training on sand. Then I’ll play in Rome, Strasbourg and the French Open in Paris. That is the plan.
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