Melbourne – With a bouquet of flowers in hand as a birthday present, Angelique Kerber could smile again despite her sobering first-round failure at the Australian Open.
“Not the result I was hoping for on the court today, but I’m still going to celebrate a bit tonight,” the 34-year-old wrote on Instagram a few hours after her 4-6, 3-6 loss to Estonian Kaia Kanepi in a greeting to her fans.
Shortly after her elimination, the worst women’s result at the Australian Open in 45 years, the German number one looked to the future with a fighting spirit. “I still play tennis with passion. I hope I can still bring home one or two wins and titles,” said the Kiel native as she became the last German tennis player to be eliminated in Melbourne.
Petkovic and Maria also fail
None of initially only three women is thus represented in the second round at the first Grand Slam tournament. This had not been the case in Down Under since 1977, when in completely different tennis times the majority of the women at the Australian Open were Australians and one German was missing from the table right from the start.
If you look at all the Grand Slam tournaments, you don’t have to look back very far for this result: only last year, at the French Open in Paris, all the German women were eliminated in the first round. There is a glaring gap behind the golden generation around Kerber, which was confirmed once again. The three-time Grand Slam winner shared her fate with Andrea Petkovic (34) and Tatjana Maria (34).
“That hurts, of course,” said Eurosport expert Boris Becker. From the German point of view, more players in the second round would have been nice. “But that’s the way it is. I’m quite confident in the men’s singles – there’s still more to come,” said Becker.
If Alexander Zverev wants to keep his title hopes alive against Australian John Millman on Wednesday (2nd match after 9.00 am/Eurosport), Kerber can still celebrate her birthday then. “I think health is the most important thing right now,” the world number 20 replied when asked about her special day wishes.
Missing match practice
The corona virus had thrown a spanner in her preparation plans in December. She had a fever, no taste either, she had even feared for her participation in the Australian Open. She had travelled to Melbourne with low expectations, she had reported a few days before the far too flawed performance with frequent faltering and too rare successful shots.
Against the 36-year-old Kanepi, who is past her best, she felt a lack of training hours. “I didn’t notice Corona consequences now, but I noticed that I was maybe one step too slow, made too easy mistakes. Of course I lacked match practice,” she explained. “It was definitely not my best tennis.”
It has now been six years since her first of what is now three Grand Slam titles heralded a dream 2016 season. Now, for the second time in a row, the left-hander was finished Down Under in the first round. In 2021, she had spent two weeks in strict quarantine because of Corona. But on a good day, she can still be expected to win Grand Slam events, as she showed last summer when she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
Nevertheless, the question of the end of Kerber’s career is coming up more and more often. Similar to Philipp Kohlschreiber on the men’s side. While Jan-Lennard Struff (against Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp) and Maximilian Marterer (against Taylor Fritz from the USA), like Kerber, failed on the second day of the tournament, the veteran secured a second challenge. Thanks to a 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (7-0) win over Italy’s Marco Cecchinato, the Augsburg native became the fifth German to advance to the men’s second round.
“I’ve certainly had some great moments here for the tournament, or for me,” the 38-year-old recalled of all his appearances in Australia since 2005. A win against 15th-seeded Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut does not seem completely out of reach for him on Thursday. And Kohlschreiber definitely wants to “go full throttle” until Wimbledon.
