Angelique Kerber has arrived well in Paris. During her first training session on Thursday, she worn out a prominent player.
By Jens Huiber from Paris
After just over an hour of hard batting, Carla Suarez Navarro had enough. Thank you, but no, thank you. No more training minutes with Angelique Kerber, the Spaniard’s energy reservoir was completely exhausted. Kerber took note of it with some amusement, the double major winner had just got really warm.
The French Open 2018 promises to be a very simple task for Angelique Kerber. Or a very difficult one. Simply because last year’s first-round defeat against Ekaterina Makarowa was recorded. From this perspective, the result for 2018 cannot be worse at all.
On the other hand, Kerber has been struggling with a thigh strain during the last weeks, had to cancel her start in Madrid. The performance in Rome went quite well until, once again Elina Svitolina stood in the way of the Kieler, for the sixth time in a row.
After the unit with Suarez Navarro, Kerber reported that everything was in good health. She had only come to Paris on Wednesday and had not yet been able to put the conditions into perspective. “The weather is different than in Rome”, so much more, then the German made off with coach Wim Fissette and her physiotherapist.
Kerber was drawn by Mona Barthel in round one, who had to do hard work in Nuremberg on Thursday, lost after almost endless delays against Kiki Bertens in three sets. Kerber sees the result against her countrywoman with 3:2 victories in front, most recently the two have played on hard court in Dubai in 2017.
The good news from Kerber’s point of view: fear opponent Svitolina was drawn into the other half. The Ukrainian took over the baton on Court 3 – and trained to Kerber, where the traffic on Avenue de la Porte D´Auteuil is loudest.