TIn spite of 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 Prague when Anna-Lena Friedsam and debutante Jule Niemeier defeated the Czechs Katerina Siniakova and Lucie Hradecka 4: 6, 7: 6 (7: 2), 8:10 in doubles had to.
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.
Today against Switzerland
Since only the first out of the four groups of three get through, the selection of captain Rainer Schüttler in the second group game against Switzerland on Tuesday (5:00 p.m.) is 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 defeat”.
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 also did it very, very well,” said the 34-year-old Darmstadt native 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.
Against third place in the list, Krejcikova, she missed set balls, had to go into the tie-break – and, like Petkovic, made the first round with a double fault a few hours earlier. Like her teammate, she also had a short 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 ensured 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.
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