A battered Angelique Kerber has dropped out in the round of sixteen of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. The world rankings twelfth injured on her right thigh had to give up after 39 minutes with a score of 0:6, 0:2 against Estin Anett Kontaveit (WTA No. 32). For the first time in four years, no German player has reached the quarter-finals in Stuttgart.
By Ulrike Weinrich from Stuttgart
Kerber grabbed her bat bag after the task and laid a towel over her shoulders. As she bid farewell, she waved sadly to the audience once again and then left her “living room”, where she had triumphed in 2015 and 2016, with a lowered gaze.
The scenario had already indicated itself in the minutes before. At 0:5 behind in the first set Kerber had taken a medical timeout. She returned with a bandage around her thigh. Earlier, the two-time Grand Slam winner, who had shone 6-3, 6-2 against Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic (No. 8) the day before, had already moved remarkably badly.
She had to give up her first service game. In the first three games, Angie won just three points. The spectators in the Porsche Arena, which was sold out at 4500, kept cheering the former world number one on, but everyone seemed to feel that the eighth-final hurdle for the injured Kerber could not be mastered that day.
After losing the first round, the Kieler let her coach Wim Fissette come. The Belgian told his protégé: “You must know, but don’t break your body,” he said. Kerber complained, “I’m trying, but I’m in real pain.” She seemed demoralized by her wounds. Shortly afterwards, the 2016 Australian Open winner gave up after two more losses.
Since defending champion Laura Siegemund (Metzingen) had previously lost 4:6, 6:4, 3:6 despite a strong performance by Coco Vandeweghe from the USA, no German player reached the round of the last eight in the “home game” for the first time in four years.
Kerber in particular had raised high expectations with her gala against Petra Kvitova the day before. After the disappointing course of the Fed Cup weekend with a 4-1 defeat in the semi-final against the Czech Republic, she changed hotels in Stuttgart before the Premier Tournament began. “That was the reason,” Kerber joked on Wednesday evening with a view to her impressive 6-3, 6-2 revanche in the first-round match against eighth-placed Kvitova.
Knowing that wasn’t even half the truth. Three days after her clear 2:6, 2:6 defeat against the world ranking tenth, she presented herself in a duel with Kvitova as if changed: self-confident, lively – and successful. Their coach Wim Fissette had already stressed in an interview that “Sand can make Angie a better player”.
However, the two-time Grand Slam winner did not yet want to relativize her modest goals on the unloved ashes. “It’s just the beginning of the clay court season, I still have no great expectations. It’s just important to me to play as many matches as possible before the French Open,” Kerber said.
The left-hander seemed to have arrived in her oasis of well-being after a few days of settling in. “I’ve already triumphed twice here in this hall. So I know how to do it,” she said!” And the team behind the team had also given reason for confidence before the task against Kontaveit.
Mother Beata and sister Jessica were there – and of course Grandma Maria, who came from Poland. She also sat in the pits when her granddaughter won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in 2015 and 2016 and rapidly drove the powerful winning car across the Centre Court after the final. “It’s always something special when the family is here. Unfortunately this is not possible that often”, stressed Kerber, who is again the German number one ahead of Julia Görges (Bad Oldesloe), regardless of her retirement on Monday.
For her divided relationship to the red ashes, “Angie” then also has an explanation that is as simple as it is plausible: “When you come back to sand, you have in mind the memories of the year before and the last two or three years. And I didn’t have the best memories – except here in Stuttgart, of course.” However, the relatively fast surface at the Premier Event cannot be compared to the grainy track in Madrid, Rome or Paris, where, of course, they play outdoors.