Tuesday, November 02, 2021
Tennis ladies already under pressure
“Toller Fight” ends in great disappointment
Despite a show of strength by Angelique Kerber, the tennis women lose their opening game at the Billie Jean King Cup against the host Czech Republic. The decision is only made in the doubles and there in the tiebreak. Before the second game against Switzerland, the selection is already under pressure.
Despite an impressive show of strength by Angelique Kerber, the German tennis women narrowly lost their first group game against the host Czech Republic at the Billie Jean King Cup. It was shortly after midnight early Tuesday morning in the atmospheric O2 Arena in Prague when Anna-Lena Friedsam and debutante Jule Niemeier beat Czechs Katerina Siniakova and Lucie Hradecka 4: 6, 7: 6 (7: 2) in doubles. , 8:10 had to be beaten.
Previously, the three-time Grand Slam winner and former world number one Kerber had won against the French Open winner Barbora Krejcikova 6: 7 (5: 7), 6: 0, 6: 4 and equalized to 1: 1. Andrea Petkovic lost against Marketa Vondrousova 1: 6, 3: 6. “It was a great fight,” said team captain Rainer Schüttler. He was “disappointed that we lost”, but satisfied “with the way” of the performance. “It was a very narrow defeat in the end,” said the ex-professional.
Since only the first out of the four groups of three will advance, Schüttler will be selected in the second group game against Switzerland on Tuesday (5 p.m.) already under enormous pressure to have a chance of the secretly hoped for semi-finals. And like the Czechs, the Swiss around Olympic champion Belinda Bencic have a strong and balanced team. “Our group is simply the horror group”, said Petkovic and spoke of “difficult challenges” because, as tennis players in a regular tournament mode, they are not used to “having to play again the next day after defeats”.
Thrilling duels
Kerber & Co. now have to quickly tick off the narrow defeat. Petkovic in particular did not agree with her performance at all. “It felt modest for me on the pitch today, but she did it very, very well,” said the 34-year-old Darmstadt woman after her sobering defeat in 1:15 hours and paid her opponent respect. “She had the ball in the racket so well. It was just incredibly difficult for me today. If it was important, she scored the points.”
Kerber went into the duel with this year’s Roland Garros winner in singles and doubles with the mortgage of having to win. She was quickly 3-0 down, but fought her way into the match. As of this week, the 33-year-old from Kiel is number nine in the world for the first time in more than two years again in the top ten.
Kerber missed set balls against third place in the ranking, Krejcikova, had to go into the tiebreak – and, like Petkovic, made the first round with a double fault a few hours earlier. Like her teammate, she too had a brief self-talk under the towel. “It’s better if I don’t translate it now,” said Kerber with a smile in the English part of the press conference about the situation after the sentence was lost. But instead of quarreling or doubting, Kerber continued to play with concentration and won set two 6-0.
Krejcikova was treated on the calf, the Czech trumpeters among the almost 10,000 spectators created an international match atmosphere. In the third round, a gripping duel developed with some high-class rallies and a happy ending for the German number one, who then cheered on from the player’s box with the courageous appearance of her teammates in doubles. But after 1:42 of entertaining hours, the routine of the Czech women in the match tiebreak prevailed.