Copenhagen – With a final showdown with Angelique Kerber, the classic “Sweet Caroline” and her ever-bright smile, Denmark’s tennis star Caroline Wozniacki said goodbye to her active professional career
In Copenhagen’s Royal Arena, the former world number one won her farewell match from the big tennis stage 7-5, 6-4 against her long-time companion from Germany.
“It was a fantastic evening,” the 31-year-old Dane said after the last match of her career, which had to be postponed several times before because of the Corona pandemic. “It was loads of fun, we did a lot of running. It was very special to play the last match tonight against a great friend.” Kerber and she had known each other when they were seven and nine years old respectively, Wozniacki recounted. Playing against her again in front of her home crowd means a lot to her, she said.
Kerber: “She is such a champion”.
Wozniacki got the highest praise back from Germany’s number one. “She is such a champion,” Kerber said. “But the most important thing is that she is a great person, on and off the court. She’s always smiling and she’s always nice to everybody.”
The best tennis player in Danish history also felt like smiling during her farewell match. More than two years after her last official match on the WTA Tour at the Australian Open 2020, Wozniacki showed in the exhibition match that she can still play tennis at the top level. In front of around 10,000 spectators, she was an absolute match for her opponent, who is two and a half years older than her, but often kept some rallies shorter than in earlier times with net attacks. Even the tweener – the ball between the legs with the back to the net – worked at some point.
Now comes life after the big tennis circus
Wozniacki and Kerber are united, among other things, by a long-standing friendship and the fact that the Dane spent 71 weeks at the top of the world rankings. While Kerber has won three of the four Grand Slam tournaments, Wozniacki has only one such title to her name: she won the Australian Open in 2018. Back then, the Aussies celebrated the Danish darling in Melbourne with the Neil Diamond classic “Sweet Caroline” – which was also not to be missed in the Royal Arena after she had won the first set.
Now it’s finally time for life after the big tennis circus – and thus more time for the family. Last June, Wozniacki and her husband, former NBA pro David Lee, became parents for the first time. Little Olivia is one reason why a comeback is not an issue for Wozniacki at the moment. Another is that doctors diagnosed her with rheumatoid arthritis in 2018, an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation and swelling of the joints. Ending her career now makes it easier for her to live with the disease, as she told a press conference. “I will probably never be completely free of it, but I have managed to take a little better care of my body.”
You can also play tennis in Denmark
And what’s next for Danish tennis? Actually, Germany’s northern neighbour is proud of its national football and handball teams and is also a cycling nation, which will kick off this summer’s Tour de France.
Wozniacki proved that you can also play tennis in Denmark. It is no coincidence that two potential Danish top ten players are growing up in her wake: 19-year-old Clara Tauson is currently ranked 38th in the women’s world rankings and 18-year-old Holger Rune is ranked 91st in the men’s rankings. When Wozniacki first conquered the top of the world rankings in October 2010, they were both just seven years old – and had both started playing tennis a year earlier.
