Sabine Lisicki has finished another difficult tennis year with some successes. However, the former Wimbledon finalist is already focusing on the new season.
On the Centre Court of the “OEC Open” in distant Taipei last week everything was as it was before, at least superficially, at first glance. Elisabeth and Richard Lisicki sat in the spectator stands as their daughter Sabine played for points, games, sets and match wins. It was about expectations, hopes, dreams, also about the fear of disappointment. It’s a scenario the family has known for many years, since those days when Lisickis were all working on making the desire for a great tennis career a reality.
The cycle between progress and regression, between ascent and descent, between joy and frustration never really stopped. But one thing never stopped with the Lisickis either, a character mark that father Richard, a sports scientist with a doctorate in sports science, describes with a thoroughly deliberate pathos: “We are all great fighters. We never give up,” he says, “and this applies especially to Sabine.”
Some people won’t remember much. But Lisicki once played in the league in which cracks like Angelique Kerber or Alexander Zverev play today – the Champions League. In 2013, Lisicki dominated the global tennis headlines in two summer weeks at Wimbledon, she was Everybody´s Darling, the darling of the British press and public, just like Boris Becker once was.
The ennobling nickname was not far away, “Bum-Bum-Bine” was christened Lisicki, it also had to do with the fearlessness and boldness with which she – smiling at the same time – tackled her Grand Slam tasks. But of course also with their “hammer serves” (The Daily Mail), which banged into the field of their opponents. The whole thing had only one major flaw, actually two: First, Lisicki lost the final as the clear favourite against Marion Bartoli from France.
And secondly, this was not the beginning, but first of all the temporary end of their ascent. The Wimbledon success team with coach Wim Fissette broke apart quickly, and then followed a series of partly self-inflicted, partly unfortunate mistakes and confusions that threw Lisicki back into the second to third row.
There were problems with new trainers, there were private issues like the failed relationship to the would-be fun-maker Oliver Pocher, which were dragged to the public. And there was injury bad luck over and over again, which prevented regular training and work on the tour. Others, meanwhile, passed Lisicki, scored big titles, climbed up the world rankings: Angelique Kerber, of course, the three-time Grand Slam winner. Or Julia Görges, who also made it into the top ten.
Lisicki has heard a lot in recent years, from the usual scene observers, from the big Internet swarm, also from the press, radio and television – and some of it was certainly right at a certain time: A few years ago, around her Wimbledon highlight, Lisicki made too little of her possibilities. She simply lost too many games that she should and must have won.
However, at a time when Lisicki was struggling with new injury problems, women’s tennis got a completely new face, the matches became more intense, they became longer and longer, physically more and more challenging. Anyone who was injured and lost the connection suddenly had enormous problems jumping back on the train. Even a player like Andrea Petkovic could sing a song about it.
Lisicki never gave up, even in the darkest moments. She has slipped in the world rankings, but she wants to prove to herself, the tennis world and some of her critics that it’s not all over yet – that her future is not yet over. “I’ve always been a great fighter,” she says, “that just belongs to me, that fighting spirit. I want to achieve something in tennis.”
While the top players had all gone on holiday recently, the year 2018 went into extra time for Lisicki – simply because of the goal to make it into the qualifying competition for the Australian Open 2019. She competed in Poitiers in France, then in Mumbai, India – with no resounding success. But then the year ended with a conciliatory note, with the final entry in Taipei, at a pretty well attended competition.
In the world ranking Lisicki jumped back to place 202, she can also play in the application race in Melbourne, all in all a final success, no more, no less. “When she’s physically in control, you can always count on her,” says Barbara Rittner, the women’s head of the German Tennis Federation, who has always maintained contact with her former student. According to Rittner, Lisicki is part of a generation of players with a “stand-up man” mentality.
On Thursday, after a short flying visit in Berlin, the Lisickis flew over to Florida, to the well known camp of trainer legend Nick Bollettieri in Bradenton. “Recreation, then preparation”, was on the agenda, father Lisicki told, who is again in the service of her daughter as a trainer: “Sabine has such a big heart for her sport. I wish her to do something big again. She deserved it.”