Andrea Petkovic says Serena Williams’ retirement announcement made it easier for her to announce her own retirement.
In early August, Williams announced the US Open would be the final tournament of her career.
At the time, Petkovic was also planning to play the final tournament of her career at the US Open but that wasn’t known to the public.
After Williams revealed her plans to retire, Petkovic felt it was the right moment to announce her own retirement because “nobody will care about poor little Andrea at the US Open.
Since all the focus was on Williams at the US Open, Petkovic’s retirement only drew attention from a couple pf German journalists.
Petkovic on how Williams’ retirement made it easier for her
“So I knew the end was coming and then I decided ‘Ok, US Open is going to be it’ and I didn’t wanna announce it actually cause I didn’t wanna have that extra pressure and then my team was like ‘Whoa, but you have to let your fans know.’ I wake up the next day, I turn on my phone and I have 100 direct messages on my phone, ‘Serena Williams retiring at the US Open’ and I was like ‘Ok, now it doesn’t matter, nobody will care about poor little Andrea at the US Open.’ It was actually, I have to say, looking back at it; it was much easier for me that Serena was retiring at the same time. A few German journalists asked me a bunch of questions and nobody else cared. And I could kind of go through all these emotions cause it was really hard and I feel like I saw it on Serena’s face as well. For me, the transformation process was much harder than when I was actually done with it,” Petkovic said on the Inside-In podcast, per Sportskeeda.
Petkovic, a former world No 9, exited the US Open in the first round.
In the US Open first round, Petkovic fought hard against Belinda Bencic but the Tokyo Olympics champion escaped with a 6-2 4-6 6-4 win over the German.
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