Andrea Petkovic believes she is gradually getting back to her best after bringing her disappointing run of three consecutive defeats to an end with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Italian Camila Giorgi to reach the second round of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
Petkovic, who had climbed the rankings in 2010 after reaching the last eight at the Australian and US Open, hinted at her retirement from the sport last November following a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Carla Suarez Navarro in Zhuhai.
Read more: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships: The National's full coverage
During that match, she struggled to remain focused on the court due to her own illness and the health issues surrounding her mother, who was operated on while Petkovic played in Zhuhai.
The German, however, has now put those days behind her and is ready to make a run back into the top 10.
That was a welcomed win for you, wasn’t it?
Yeah, I was very happy with the way I played. I usually loathe playing her. I don’t have the greatest head-to-head against her, and I just struggle with or used to struggle with these unpredictable players.
I have worked on a lot in the offseason and I have been playing really well in the past couple of months in practice. I just wasn’t able to transfer it into the matches. I think today was one of the first matches where everything came together, and what I really feel like is I’m getting back to the level that I had in 2011.
You said you worked hard at the end of last season. At the end of last season you went through what we might term a midcareer crisis?
A midlife crisis, yeah.
Are you over that?
I am over that. I’m definitely over, and I’m so thrilled that I made the decision to keep playing. It was just ... just a midlife crisis. I think now that I look back, I feel ... maybe ‘ashamed’ is too harsh of a word, because I’m so happy with my life right now. I really can’t understand what I have been going through now because it’s in the past, but at that moment apparently I was just not very happy with my performances on court and off court.
A lot of things in my private life are coming together, so now I’m just heading in the right direction again. I think maybe that crisis actually made me work harder in the offseason because I really wanted sort of to make up for the lost time.
It sounded at the time you felt you were wasting your time playing tennis, that there were better things to do with your life?
Well, I think it’s just a thing of growing up. I tried to evaluate it in that way. I think it’s just a thing of growing up. When you’re 20, 21, 22, you just feel like all the doors are still open. You can still be a surgeon, you can still be a lawyer, you can still be an actress, you can be whatever you wish. Once you get older, I’m 28 now, you feel… I think you realise that certain doors are closing, and there are certain paths in life that you can’t go back to.
One of these things was maybe a normal student life for me or things that I would like to study that I would like to know more about. And I think all these things combined just led to a midlife crisis, but I’m glad I’m over it because I’m very happy with everything I have. I know I’m very blessed. I’m just so grateful that I’m able to lead this life that I’m leading.
What did you do to get through it? What do you think made the difference? Was it conversations with people or just talking to yourself, or...
Yeah, I think just being to the people that are closest to me that know me the best and just talking through it, and then having a lot of conversation with people that are older and that have gone through the same things.
I also read a lot of biographies especially about people that were struggling around 27, 28, and watching a lot of biopics and movies. I could just identify myself with a lot of these people, and I think that helped me to get through it and to just see it really as a crisis and not as a matter of questioning my whole path that I chose in playing tennis, because I did choose it myself. It wasn’t forced upon me.
I think that was just a thing for me to realise and to recognize it as what it was, a crisis, and not, as I said, a questioning of why I’m here.
Any individuals in particular that you can share that perhaps you said you could relate to?
Well, I mentioned it in German TV already and they looked at me like a bus. Actually Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, he actually quit playing guitar when he was 28 exactly for a year before he came back and became a huge star, obviously.
For me, that was maybe not the thing that I could identify most with but that made me realise most that it was just a crisis, because if you don’t want to be a rock star, what else in life do you want to be? So I figured if he’s going through a crisis, it’s okay for me to go through a crisis as a tennis player.
Do you feel there was a danger that you would look back and maybe feel regret?
I felt like that in the end of last year and I think that’s what got me into this misery that I put myself into. Now I realise that it was just myself and nobody else. But now I don’t feel like it anymore, because I just realise how much I love tennis and how much I love being on tour and playing and getting in shape and the competition, and everything was just a drag last year. So that has led me to all these questions last year.
Moving forward, is there perhaps more thought from you that you will try to do more alongside tennis or would you prefer to, no, let’s keep it just tennis now and then maybe later...
Well, what has helped me also is that I’m just preparing a few things for after my career, you know. I get really excited about them, and I always have my notepad with me. When I have ideas, I scribble them down.
I’m just trying to be more creative and do stuff off court, as well, especially with my ideas and my brain and not just think about and groom about tennis all day long.
So, yeah, I think that has helped me. And also, you know, sometimes when you’re in such a down, you appreciate much more of what you have now. So now that I’m back and in shape again and playing well, I have nothing to regret and nothing to pity myself anymore.
What stuff? You said you write stuff down.
Oh, it’s very original. I cannot talk about it now. Some people might steal my ideas.
You said there were options for you and at the end of the year and now. You didn’t mention politics. A couple years ago you said you liked politics. Is that gone?
I think that was before I actually knew who I was and before I realised that I’m not a diplomatic person at all. Then I figured, well, Andrea, if you’re not diplomatic, maybe politics isn’t the right path for you. I wouldn’t last for more than a year in Germany, and I don’t believe I would make it anywhere else.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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