Commentary on Angelique Kerber: The perfect home straight – Sport

It’s still too early for the last appreciative blues. The tennis player Angelique Kerber has not finished her career yet, she emphasized that when she announced her pregnancy to the public’s surprise. It is therefore possible that she will return to the tennis court again, for example she has explicitly left the option open to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games. But even if Kerber changes her mind after the birth of her first child and mothballs the racquets forever, one thing is already certain: she has hit the perfect home stretch.

Either way, your final retirement, whenever it happens over the next few years, will feel good and right. With or without participation in Paris – your career will find a harmonious, dignified end.

This is a remarkable point, because until recently it was still completely unclear how this successful athlete, who in the past twelve years like no other professional German tennis represented would say goodbye to her job. It is also true that Angelique Kerber, the three-time Grand Slam winner and former number one in the world, has not been convincing in the usual way in the past three years and has succeeded, her tournament victory in Bad Homburg and the semi-finals in Wimbledon 2021 were positive outliers.

Kerber has earned her place in the list of great German athletes

A new, fearless generation has emerged, and there are more and more opponents to defeat. Inevitably, from time to time the question arose as to how long she, now 34 years old, wanted to be active. She couldn’t (or wouldn’t) give a definitive answer on what was understandable. If you have too many options for exit, you will find it difficult to find the right exit. Roger Federer, 41, about still looking for it. Now, one can be so pathetic, the love for Kerber has created facts, and her relief that she now knows her last stretch as an athlete was evident in her words when she said: “It means everything to me to be a professional athlete be, but I’m grateful for the new path I’m walking now.”

Angelique Kerber, nothing will change in this balance, has earned her place in the list of great German athletes. In tennis, Stefanie Graf and Boris Becker remain the shining lights of their active time. But then comes Kerber, who exemplified professionalism, ambition and tenacity and practiced combative tennis that invited viewers to share the excitement and sympathy. She managed to get the new young representatives of the German Tennis Association to take her as a role model as a professional athlete on the court. Expectant mother Kerber can already be proud of that.