Andrea Petkovic found out immediately after breakfast what one of the few downsides to a real home tournament is.

Because she first had to do the washing up and then take care of the laundry, as she said with a smile on Sunday evening.

Because the new Bad Homburg tennis tournament is only half an hour's drive from her Darmstadt home, Petkovic is currently staying at home.

For the first time in her professional career, which has now more than 15 years.

“It's nice that you can still experience premieres at 33,” she said.

Pirmin Clossé

Sports editor.

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    Andrea Petkovic noticeably enjoys the benefits of being at home. Being able to spend the evening before the start of the tournament with her family helped her, for example, to “turn her head off,” she reported. In her opening encounter against the Romanian Sorana Cirstea she was "a bit more nervous than at all the other tournaments". Finally, the parents, sister, brother-in-law and best friend, among others, watched in the stands. "But that was good," she said. Petkovic never let her favorite opponent find her way into the match and in the end deservedly won 6: 3, 6: 4. This Tuesday she will play in the round of 16 against the American Amanda Anisimova.

    Petkovic's all-round sovereign performance against Cirstea was at least surprising insofar as the grass pitch had not yet been one of their preferred surfaces.

    So it is no coincidence that the famous highlight at Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam event in which the former number nine in the world rankings has never reached the second week of the tournament.

    When her colleague and friend Angelique Kerber, who is the tournament ambassador for Bad Homburg, once told her on the phone about the creation of this new competition, she therefore had two messages for Petkovic: “The good news: It is close to your home.

    The bad: it's on grass. "

    Better relationship with the lawn

    But Petkovic's relationship with the fast, green underground has improved again substantially on the home stretch of her career. "We are slowly becoming friends," she said metaphorically on Sunday: "Not yet lovers, but friends." Petkovic, she reported, has now simply understood better what the previously unloved partner wants from her: namely a direct and aggressive game. "Anyone who can take the first trick on grass makes eighty, ninety percent of the point," she said.

    The easiest way to achieve this is undoubtedly to serve. And that's exactly what Petkovic has specifically improved over the past few months. She put in a lot of extra shifts, she said. “It's slowly paying off.” For example, she only had to take a single break against Cirstea and even played serve-and-volley at times. She just noticed that the “younger generation” was playing “faster and more explosively” and that they were fitter “than we were,” she said. This led her to a realization: "If I want to play with the best, I have to bring my game up again."

    Andrea Petkovic has recently done a lot to improve and to build on old successes. Above all, she tried "with mental trainers, meditation trainers, yoga teachers" to get more calm and more focus. “But at some point I had exhausted all of these options,” she said. "And then I said: I would like to bring my game a bit forward again." The next few days in Bad Homburg could show whether that was successful. She'll be happy to do the occasional washing up at home.