Tennis: More than a top ten player – Andrea Petkovic is breaking up

Status: 10:08 am| Reading time: 3 minutes

Dhe fans of Andrea Petkovic had suspected it for a week. The tennis player had provided an unspectacular training video on Instagram with the hashtag “#thelastdance” – a clear allusion to the legendary “Petko-Dance”, with which she often celebrated her successes. And since Sunday the whole tennis world has known: Petkovic’s last dance is imminent.

The US Open is generally “my last tournament,” said the 34-year-old in an interview with the ARD “Sportschau” immediately before her opening game on Tuesday. Then the former top ten player will probably leave the big tennis stage after 16 eventful years on the tour, because anything but a defeat against the Swiss Olympic champion Belinda Bencic would be a big surprise.

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But the Darmstadt resident leaves a back door open: after the US Open, she may have “a tournament in Europe” that “is a bit closer to my family and friends”. But maybe “it’s already over in New York”. The announcement of her resignation is not really surprising, Petkovic wanted to put the racket in the corner as early as 2020. After that she only thought from year to year. “Let’s see how long the old horse can hold out,” said the former world number ninth, self-ironic.

Petkovic thinks outside the box

There is no fear that the seven-time WTA tournament winner will fall into the much-cited hole after the end of her active career. Petkovic, who is considered cosmopolitan, educated and ambitious, has successfully tried out many professional fields in recent years. Since December 2019, the 2014 French Open semi-finalist has been part of the ZDF team of sports presenters.

The Hessian with the Abitur grade of 1.2 has always thought outside the box. Her interest in literature, music, art, politics and social issues brought her an invitation to the “Literary Quartet”. Her first work as an author “Between Glory and Honor Lies the Night”, in which Petkovic tells stories about her life as a professional athlete, was praised by the “SZ” feuilleton as a “reflective, often funny, even more often thoughtful, wise book”.

But strangely enough, the many part-time jobs brought her back the joy of competitive sports. “Through my many trips it became even clearer to me that my greatest passion is tennis,” she once said. With this increased motivation, Petkovic triumphed again in August 2021 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania – it was her first tournament victory in six and a half years. And it will very likely be her last.

Petkovic, who achieved ninth place on the WTA tour in October 2011, announced her retirement, Julia Görges said goodbye two years ago, Angelique Kerber’s return after her baby break is uncertain: In German women’s tennis, things are happening an upheaval. The successor generation to Steffi Graf is leaving, new talents such as Wimbledon quarter-finalist Jule Niemeier (23) or Nastasja Schunk (19) now have to fill this gap.

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For Niemeier, Petkovic acts as a kind of mentor, both have already played doubles together. Because of her open and helpful nature, Petkovic will also be missing from the German Fed Cup team, with which she reached the final in 2014. But Petkovic senses that the time to say goodbye has come. “I trust my heart and my feelings completely,” she once said about the time of her resignation.