Petkovic curses, limps, loses - and wants to continue his career

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Problems with serve: Andrea Petkovic

Photo: 

Rob Prange / imago images / ZUMA Wire

The tennis year 2020 remains special.

After the long Corona break, the second Grand Slam tournament is currently being held in Paris within a few weeks.

In autumn, in cool and wet weather - this has little to do with the usual French Open conditions in the first few days.

For Andrea Petkovic it should be the place of her comeback.

Because of a knee injury, she played her last match in Luxembourg in October 2019.

In the first round she met US Open surprise Zwetana Pironkowa - and lost clearly 3: 6, 3: 6.

If everything had gone normally, Petkovic would probably have ended her career at the end of this year, but now she is continuing.

2020 was ultimately "for the bin," said Petkovic, who has also been working as a sports presenter for ZDF since the end of last year. 

Petkovic is already looking to the coming year, when she "wants to attack again", as she announced on Monday.

"My focus now will be on recovering well and then preparing well for the new season," said the 33-year-old.

In return, she would also be prepared to spend Christmas in quarantine in Australia.

The corona plans of the organizers of the Australian Open currently envisage this for players who want to start in Melbourne in January 2021.

"Then at least I can escape the bad weather in Germany," said Petkovic.

"You always have to see the positive."

Petkovic does not implement performance from training

After the defeat by Pironkowa, Andrea Petkovic felt a deep disappointment.

"I was really sad that the game went by so quickly," she said after the match, which lasted just 73 minutes.

"I played really well in training so it's frustrating."

One noticed Petkovic the lack of match practice clearly.

She moved poorly and had major problems with her own serve.

She gave her service six times in total.

When the score was 0: 3 after less than ten minutes, her bat flew.

She was annoyed by slight mistakes and admonished herself in self-talk to pass the balls and not take so much risk.

In addition, she had physical problems in the course of the game, her operated left knee obviously hurt.

"She played a very good match, unfortunately I didn't," said Petkovic after the match with an ice pack on his knee.

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krä / dpa / sid