Is it already known on Thursday that there will be a German Wimbledon winner in 2018? Julia Görges will face Serena Williams in the semi-final, Angelique Kerber wants to make her second final entry against Jelena Ostapenko clear.
By Jörg Allmeroth from London
Julia Görges had not lost her smile at the tenth interview on the terrace of the International Press Centre. As always, the new Wimbledon semi-finalist answered questions from TV stations all over the world, and the eloquent brunette effortlessly switched between German and English.
After all, this day, this 10 July 2018, stood like no other for the breathtaking turnaround in her career. Wimbledon, once a cursed, bewitched place for Görges, suddenly became a symbol of the sporting upswing: “I gave myself a new chance in tennis. Also and especially here”, said Görges sometime in the light of the slowly sinking sun.
She was not the only German winner on this day that was as special in Wimbledon as few others in this new century. Even before Görges advanced into a new tennis universe with her three-set comeback against her friend Kiki Bertens, into a semi-final rendezvous with Serena Williams, Angelique Kerber had also solved the ticket for the club of the last four – as confident, as consistent, as convinced of herself as in her 2016 gala season.
“I’m back where I was,” said the 30-year-old from Kiel later, who now meets the Latvian Yelena Ostapenko. After a rollercoaster ride on the playgrounds of the Wander Circus, it is once again a stable force, especially where it really counts in the global tennis business – on the Grand Slam courts. And especially again in Wimbledon, in the Theater of Dreams. Two years ago she lost here only in the final against a hard to stop Serena Williams. But now Kerber is the real favourite for the highest price.
At the end of this 2018 edition of the Open English Championships, can it really be that there will be a German winner on Thursday? It is a fascinating option, a uniqueness in the modern tennis era – an opportunity that did not exist even in the much larger German times of the 1980s and 1990s. Sure, in 1931 Cilly Aussem and Hilde Krahwinkel played the Wimbledon Cup in a German championship, but it is an event that has no connection, no relationship to the here and now.
Unlike the name and career of a certain Steffi Graf, she is still the point of orientation, of course she also left her impressive mark in Wimbledon with six victories. Kerber or Görges, one of them could actually become the heiress of the super-wife of German tennis on Church Road.
Graf was recently on the fringes of the French Open at a sponsorship event, and she also spoke about the strong generation of German players, Kerber and Görges: “Every time I read something about their victories, I’m happy. Neither was deterred by disappointments and setbacks,” said the 22-time Grand Slam winner, “they still have a very good time ahead of them.
Graf is no longer a regular observer of tennis, it’s true, but she still has an interested, sharpened eye on the German players. About Wimbledon she had also said to her compatriots from another generation: “You can only compete successfully in this tournament if you like it”.
Kerber and Görges can tell you a thing or two about it. But it would now have a conciliatory, even cheerful melody. After the minor notes before. Wimbledon has significantly shaped Kerbers and Görges´’s career in recent years and set them on a new path. The bitter disappointments here in London SW19 aroused such deep frustration that both northern lights radically repositioned themselves. Everything was questioned, almost everything was changed – always under the motto: Get off the beaten track.
Kerber even wanted to stop playing tennis in Wimbledon in 2011, when she was beaten by British player Laura Robson in the first round. First her friend Andrea Petkovic helped out of the depression, then Kerber helped herself: She became wirier, fitter, slimmer, stormed to the top of the world with a new body feeling – and also to two Grand Slam triumphs. In Wimbledon she is now part of the establishment, 2018 could be the year in which she takes the last step to the throne in the All England Club.
And Görges? When she arrived in Wimbledon just two weeks ago, she had only won five matches in all the years before. Wimbledon was a horror place, a spectre for the Bad Oldesloerin, who now lives and works in Regensburg with her friend Florian Zitzelsberger, Zitzelsberger is also part of “Team Jule” professionally as a physiotherapist.
Although Görges was the first player of this generation to make headlines in 2011 with her victory at the Stuttgart Porsche Grand Prix, her story afterwards was a story of missed opportunities. She was what is known in English as an underperformer, one who does too little with her possibilities. “I was simply dissatisfied with my entire status quo at the time,” says Görges. “I knew I had more potential.”
Especially in Wimbledon this latent dissatisfaction increased dramatically: Görges, the woman with the hard punch, with the arrow-fast serves, retired no less than five times in the first round in the Grand Slam turf kingdom. “I really thought I couldn’t play properly on grass,” says Görges, “but that was total nonsense.”
The big turn came only when Görges moved to Bavaria because of the Wimbledon disillusionment and found a congenial, because unagitated partner in coach Michael Geserer. When Görges was asked on Tuesday evening what the most important product and result of this cooperation was, she said: “My positivity. The confident view of life, of my profession.”
Thus, unaffected by the history of their almost eternal failure, Görges was now able to strike the big blow – to advance into previously undiscovered terrain at a Grand Slam. She had never been in a semi-final before, never in a quarter-final before: “The fact that it has now happened in Wimbledon makes it all the more beautiful. It shows how things have changed for me.”
Where these German stories will end here in Wimbledon remains wonderfully open. Everything is possible, even a German summer fairy tale with a German final and a German winner.