"While Queen Latifah narrated Serena Williams' entrance, I was struggling to breathe on Court 7" - Andrea Petkovic on her 'stupidly'-timed retirement
Andrea Petkovic recently opened up about her retirement, jokingly chiding herself for how 'stupidly'-timed it was.
After a career that more than a decade and a half, Petkovic hung up her racket at the 2022 US Open, which also turned out to be Serena Williams' last tournament on tour. Considering it was her home Slam, the 23-time Grand Slam champion's farewell took center stage, drawing all the eyeballs.
Speaking in a column she wrote on Substack, Petkovic reflected on the kind of career she had, labeling it somewhere between good and great. The German admitted that like every other player, she wanted to become World No. 1 and win Grand Slam tournaments, neither of which she could achieve in her career.
"Every tennis player that decides to try their luck on tour, that shows promise early on, has one goal and one goal only: become the best tennis player the world has ever seen. I always hated journalists’ questions about my goals for the season because secretly I always thought: isn’t it obvious? I want to win Grand Slam tournaments and be the number one player in the world! We all do," Andrea Petkovic said.
"I never reached either of those holy grails of tennis. It hasn’t rendered me bitter or unhappy but it has caused regrets at times, questions whether I had given it all that I could," she added.
The former World No. 9 joked that she could have "moved on" from those failures had she had a better retirement, which also did not turn out to be the case.
Petkovic recalled, with humor, how while Queen Latifah was out on Arthur Ashe Stadium narrating Williams' entrance with ads plastered all around the city, she was "struggling to breathe" on the outside courts at her own farewell.
"Maybe I could have moved on quicker if I hadn’t stupidly decided to retire at exactly the same time as Serena Williams, the greatest female tennis player to ever play the game. We both retired at the US Open and while Queen Latifah narrated Serena’s entrance into Arthur Ashe Stadium, all ads showed Serena’s face, a Broadway actor sang the U.S. national anthem with a bit more verve than usual, the stadium lights bright and glistening while the sun was setting behind the New York skyline, I was struggling to breathe on court 7," she elaborated.
"Trying to survive one more match before it was over. Before it was finally over. All the stress, all the pressure, the doubts, the longing and striving, the desire, the hope, the crushing of dreams over and over again - all gone," Andrea Petkovic added.
Petkovic did not last long in her final tournament, falling to Belinda Bencic in the very first round. Serena Williams, on the other hand, reached the third round before falling to Ajla Tomljanovic.
"It hurts me to say this but talent matters and talent differs" - Andrea Petkovic
Andrea Petkovic went on, emphasizing that it hurt her to admit that talent mattered at the end of the day and that it differed from one player to another.
Even though she felt she worked harder than anybody and gave it her everything, some were naturally better at the game than her - a "realism" that is bound to be shocking for most people.
"It hurts me to say this but talent matters and talent differs. In a society which teaches us that anything is possible if you just want it badly enough and work at it as hard as you can I am the bearer of bad news, or as I, a German, like to call it REALISM, that it’s not true," Andrea Petkovic said.
"I worked harder than anybody, watched hundreds and thousands of videos of my rivals playing, analysing their every move, their every stroke, but no matter what I did, there were always women around me who saw the ball earlier, who anticipated better and who used their bodies more efficiently," she added.