In “Time to get out of there,” the German athlete relentlessly chronicles her deep life crisis and search for meaning outside of sport.
After resigning, Andrea Petkovic feels a need: “To be unhealthy, intoxicated, strange, different.”
Lottermann And Fuentes
Top sport is life in a compressed form, everything is reduced to moments, millimeters and fractions of a second decide between euphoria and disappointment. A healthy distance from your job is hardly possible; All effort is always required, both physically and mentally. That’s why the end of one’s career hits athletes so hard: because there is so little feeling apart from the sport. And when competitive athletes come down from their intensity trip after their career, they are forced to find a new purpose – knowing that they will probably never be as good in the new area as they were in sport.
Andrea Petkovic mercilessly describes how it feels when saying goodbye becomes unavoidable in her book “Time to Get Away”. She paints a picture of a woman who, despite the ability to self-reflect, slides into a deep crisis when she has to let go. Playing tennis was never a career for her, writes the 36-year-old. “It was my life, my identity.” Who is Andrea Petkovic if she is no longer a tennis player?
Deutsche takes readers along on a search for answers. The book is not a linguistic success, but it lacks originality. But it is a precise self-questioning. Athletes are used to distinguishing themselves through performance; weakness is not an option. It is therefore remarkable how honestly Petkovic documents her psychological collapse. Despite all her emotionality, she manages to remain an objective observer of her own story. The reflections on endings and new beginnings, on aging and the meaning of life make the book worth reading even for those who are not interested in sports.
Andrea Petkovic, who came to Germany from Bosnia as a baby in 1987, is an exception in top-class sport with her ability to analyze and her talent as a writer. During her sports career, she wrote a number of columns for various publications. In 2020, “Between Fame and Honor Lies the Night,” a collection of stories, was published.
Crying for four weeks
Andrea Petkovic is close to the top in tennis. At her best, she made it into the top ten in the world and once reached the semi-finals of the French Open. In the last few years of her career, she was repeatedly set back by injuries. She actually wants to retire in 2021, but feels so fit after the break due to the pandemic that she will continue another season.
The book takes place in 2022, structured by months. In July, before the Grand Slam tournament in Wimbledon, she injured her elbow while jumping off a bicycle. She travels to London, trains and takes painkillers behind the trainer’s back. After losing in the first round, she made the decision to resign. She lost her last game at the US Open at the end of August against the Swiss Belinda Bencic.
Goodbyes are even more difficult when they leave you with the feeling that something is incomplete. When something you dreamed of absolutely has to happen. Petkovic demands an incredible amount from himself; For them, discipline is a kind of framework for life. But she is not a racket virtuoso; she lacks the ease. She owes her successes to hard work.
When she leaves, she not only has to say goodbye to the court, but also to the idea that she was ever the best. Almost at the same time as her, Serena Williams, the greatest player of the last twenty-five years, announced her retirement. The parallelism forces her to a painful conclusion: the American will forever have a place in tennis history, Petkovic remains a footnote.
Athletes who are considering retirement are united by one wish: if they have to leave, they at least want to decide when. If an injury leads to the end, you get thrown out of a team, you struggle. Petkovic feels forced to resign by a body that no longer cooperates. The loss of sovereignty hurts even more. “The most devastating of all life crises is old age,” she writes. She cried for four weeks after the decision, “only interrupted by eating and sleeping.”
The struggle for the free decision was also seen in Roger Federer, who, as a tennis senior, tried to get back on the court for over a year. When he finally had to give up in 2022, he wrote: “I also know the capabilities and limits of my body, and its message to me has been clear lately.” With Rafael Nadal, Federer’s former biggest competitor, the drama is still ongoing. The Spaniard traveled to tournaments twice this year, only to admit that it wasn’t enough. The 37-year-old’s body hasn’t been able to cope with it for a long time. The question is not whether he will come back again, but whether he will be able to say goodbye in a self-determined manner.
Andrea Petkovic is having a good moment after her last match. In the book she remembers the lightness and feels free. Until everyday life comes.
The lifestyle of a tennis player gave her “structure and meaning and excuses”. “I’m at a tournament” always explained everything, every email that wasn’t answered, every unpleasant meeting that couldn’t take place. A sports career empowers athletes to escape the grind. Life is dictated by the game plan and structured by training sessions and regeneration. It is in the hands of professionals: agents, coaches, physiotherapists. Suddenly you have to take matters into your own hands. Petkovic has a hard time with it; she doesn’t know why she should get up in the morning. She “sits around on talk shows in black clothes” and eats donuts until she feels sick.
Socially mutilated
She tries to replace the intensity of professional sports by drinking herself to a high, but the athlete in her won’t let go. She consumes sugar, coffee, alcohol indiscriminately. In her greed, she is reminiscent of a child who is not allowed to eat sweets and stuffs herself as soon as she is with friends. Petkovic wants to be “unhealthy, intoxicated, strange, different”. After years of maximum control, she wants to let herself go and realizes that exuberance cannot be achieved.
The simplest things have lost their meaning. In the past, sleep was never sleep, but rather regeneration, and eating was not pleasure, but fuel. Now they are reduced to their original provisions. Why strive for a healthy life? The disorientation is bottomless. Petkovic feels how sport has mutilated her socially. As a tennis player, she has spent so much time alone in hotel rooms that she finds it difficult to form bonds and behave appropriately in a room with people. She doesn’t know how to help herself other than to imitate the behavior of others. Through the agony of saying goodbye, you can experience life in professional sports.
“Time to get out of here” by Andrea Petkovic
In the final months of the year Petkovic records, the story frays. It is not always clear why she describes which experience or what meaning some encounters have. The aimlessness in life is reflected in the text. Until she finds her footing again towards the end – after a process that everyone who has mourned knows. At some point she can recognize the depression that Petkovic suspects she has as sadness. And when she manages to accept this, she begins to feel better. In her new life she works as an expert for an American tennis broadcaster and advises the German Tennis Association.
Even though not a day goes by that she doesn’t write, as she says, it’s hard to imagine what a next book might look like. Her two works are about the big themes of love, meaning, farewell, but she draws heavily from her origins and existence as a tennis player. If Andrea Petkovic wants to become a writer, she will first have to collect life again
Andrea Petkovic: Time to get out of there. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2024. 215 pages, Fr. 35.90, e-book 19.–.
An article from the «»
2024-04-05 12:05:39
#book #Andrea #Petkovic #describes #crisis #meaning #playing #professional #tennis
