Every working person has a preferred job.

One of them prefers to enjoy the freedom in the home office, the other feels more inspired in personal exchange with office colleagues.

One likes it a little cooler at work, the other more cozy.

It is hardly any different for those who play tennis for work and do their job in different places over the year.

Thomas Klemm

Editor in the "Money & More" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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    Whether hard court, clay court or lawn - the feel-good factor and the performance of the professionals depend very much on the circumstances.

    In this respect, Andrea Petkovic is currently experiencing the hardest working hours of her tennis year, which is not easy anyway.

    Her once disturbed relationship to the lawn has improved, the Darmstadt woman claimed at the Bad Homburg tournament.

    But what about your new favorite rubber?

    "I would not go so far."

    You just have to look at their results on the green background.

    In her previous nine individual participations in the traditional Wimbledon tournament, she has never reached the second week.

    She failed three times in round one, two and three.

    Andrea Petkovic is just one who likes to fight her way into the rallies, and also physically measures herself against the opponent.

    It's going so-so right now

    In addition, she can cover up her weaknesses better on hard court or clay court. On the other hand, everything happens in no time on grass, and when the Darmstadt resident tries her hand at serve-and-volley from time to time, the young women on the other hand react with often crashing returns. "If you play the first aggressive long ball, you score 80, 90 percent of the time because the ball slips through," explains the former Fed Cup player.

    That's how it goes this summer for Andrea Petkovic. Your two appearances at the two new German lawn tournaments of the past two weeks ended as usual disappointing: first round defeat at Hundekehlesee in Berlin, second round in the spa gardens of Bad Homburg. After that, she was tight-lipped and in a bad mood and left questions about her Wimbledon ambitions unanswered. "If we tennis players were concerned about every loss, we wouldn't play." Period. Then the farewell to London, where the high point of the lawn season is coming from this Monday.

    However, the 33-year-old could have some thoughts in the fall of her tennis career when defeat follows defeat, as it has for months. Six of the past eight Grand Slam tournaments were over for the Darmstadt-based woman after the first round. This year she has won five matches and lost twelve, some of them in qualifying for tournaments where she was seeded in better times. Back when she had advanced to ninth place in the world rankings. Your rank today: 130.

    She still has her notorious ambition, says Andrea Petkovic, and still wants to develop her game today.

    “The younger generation, which plays even faster and more aggressively and is even fitter than we were back then, provided an impetus.” And above all, the young, quick-witted ladies from Russia and elsewhere have the absolute will to make it to the top, and align their actions and omissions to that.

    This is no longer the case with Andrea Petkovic, who has a wide range of interests.

    "Keeping Tennis Alive"

    Life as a professional tennis player tends to be monotonous. Airplane, hotel, tennis court, this is the daily routine of the tour. In between, people eat, sleep and watch Netflix. If you drop out of a tournament sooner or later, everything starts all over again, only the location and the field of participants are different. It makes things easier when a professional gets along well on his own and pursues other interests in addition to the hard work. Like Andrea Petkovic always and especially in her later phase.

    Gradually, the Darmstadt native has opened up further fields of activity. She works as a sports presenter for ZDF, writes constantly, and was a guest as a frequent reader and author of the respectable first work “Between fame and honor lies the night” on the television program “Das literäre Quartett”. From July 12th, Andrea Petkovic will also take on the role of ambassador for the men's tennis tournament at Hamburg's Rothenbaum, and she herself will take part in the women's tournament the week before at the same location. "It is very important to me to keep tennis alive in Germany, and if at some point it is no longer possible as a player," she said recently when she was introduced as a "Tournament Ambassador".

    How should one call the busy Hessin: Playfully moderating ambassador author?

    Andrea Petkovic is still primarily a professional tennis player, and as such she will appear at Wimbledon for the last time.

    Not only because of this, it will be a special trip to London, the Delta variant of the coronavirus spreading worries.

    Nevertheless, the All England Club has received permission that more and more spectators cavort on the course during the tournament and that the ranks may be fully occupied on the weekend of the finals.

    The professionals, on the other hand, have to live in a "bubble".

    “You can't even go out for an hour, you have to sit in the hotel room and eat there,” Andrea Petkovic heard.

    Nobody can like a workplace like this.