Wimbledon: Petkovic fought despite virus: “One is not a rational thinking person”

Andrea Petkovic threw up on the court – but didn’t think anything about giving up despite a stomach flu. But the commitment of the Hessian was not rewarded. Weakened in the second round of Wimbledon, “Petko” lost 4:6, 3:6 against Yanina Wickmayer from Belgium.

By Ulrike Weinrich from Wimbledon

Already on Wednesday morning Petkovic had aching limbs when waking up, but at first thought of nothing bad. “I said to my team: “The lawn here is going to the bone,” she reported this evening at the press conference. During the recording, the 30-year-old felt how weakened she really was: “I had no strength.

At times it got better, “for nine or ten minutes”. But when Petkovic was trailing Wickmayer 2:3 in the second set, she let the doctor come. First, her blood pressure was measured. A little later Petkovic had to throw up sitting on the chair.

However, the former number nine in the world did not think of giving up. “At a Grand Slam so much can happen, I just wanted to give myself the chance,” explained the Darmstadt native and added: “In such situations you are not a rational-thinking person. At all tournaments other than the majors, I would have pulled out.”

Petkovic lost in 75 minutes, but didn’t miss the chance to play in doubles with Kaia Kanepi later on, so as not to disappoint her Latvian partner. The duo even won 6:4, 6:3 against Carina Witthöft/Maria Irigoyen (Hamburg/Argentina). “But I felt like I wasn’t standing on the court,” she said.

When she got dizzy for a moment, she ate half a banana. But despite the tablets against nausea, “Petko” immediately went bad again. When she looked at the individual tableau, she was “really annoyed”. US Open winner Sloane Stephens (USA), among others, was eliminated in her quarter of the draw on the first day of the tournament.

It might have been a good chance for Petkovic, who had convinced in the first round and before at a show tournament on grass, to finally make peace with her weakest Grand Slam tournament.