On the way to top form
Kerber crowns the race to catch up, now the top favorite is waiting
May 11, 2024, 3:45 p.m
The best tennis professionals in the world still have two weeks to get into top shape for the second Grand Slam tournament of the year – and Angelique Kerber is well on her way. The three-time Grand Slam winner faces the ultimate endurance test.
Tennis player Angelique Kerber is getting better and better two weeks before the start of the French Open. The former world number one won her third round match against Alexandra Sasnowitsch from Belarus 6:3, 7:6 (7:4) at the Masters 1000 tournament on clay in Rome and moved into the round of 16. There the 36-year-old will face the Polish top favorite Iga Swiatek, who had recently won 6:3, 6:4 against Yulia Putinzewa from Kazakhstan.
Against the world number 113. Sasnowitsch had Kerber mostly in control of the game in the first set. However, in the second round, the Kiel player lost the thread after taking a 2-1 lead and ended up trailing 2-5. She then fought her way back into the match, fended off three set points and finally dominated the tiebreak.
Kerber had already impressed in the previous rounds against the American Lauren Davis and the Russian Weronika Kudermetowa, who was number 17, and did not give up a single sentence. The three-time Grand Slam tournament winner is the last remaining German player at the clay court tournament, which is considered the last major test of form for the French Open in Paris, which begins on May 26th.
For Kerber, it is the first tournament since the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart in April, when she failed in the first round due to health problems against the British Emma Raducanu. Afterwards she decided to take a short break to recover from the effects of a cold and to “do proper clay court preparation”. Kerber returned to the tour around the turn of the year after an 18-month maternity leave.