There are many reasons to fall in love with Paris: the flair, the savoir vivre, the art, the fashion, the food, the variety, maybe even the iron colossus called the Eiffel Tower.

For Andrea Petkovic, as a professional athlete, there is something else that tourists have nothing to do with: the love of success.

Thomas Klemm

sports editor.

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At the Bois de Boulogne, where the most important clay court tournament is held every year, the Darmstadt native is always there with all her heart.

It all started in 2007, when she qualified for the main draw of one of the four Grand Slam tournaments for the first time at the age of nineteen - and still torn between her ambition for tennis and her desire to study.

"It was like the first great love," says Petkovic today, now 34 years old.

A love she will eventually have to distance herself from.

But when?

That's the big question after Andrea Petkovic lost 6-1 and 7-1 in the second round to Wiktoria Asarenka of Belarus in this year's Roland Garros edition.

Maybe goodbye forever

On the Wednesday of the defeat there was a touch of farewell mood in the spring-like Parisian air.

After the match ball, the Hessian first hugged her almost 33-year-old opponent, followed by high fives with supporters from Germany and waving to the audience on Court 14.

When she left the pitch, it went through her mind that it could be a forever farewell to Roland Garros, said Petkovic, who was the third oldest participant in this year's women's field: "If everything depended on my will, I would still be ten years old to play.

But I have to make it dependent on my body.” If it were up to the German tennis fans, she can confidently continue.

Their loud "Let's go, Petko!" drowned out everything on the square.

Nowhere was Petkovic better

Petkovic took part in the Paris clay court tournament for the twelfth time, where she celebrated her greatest Grand Slam successes.

In 2011 she reached the quarterfinals in Roland Garros, where she lost to Maria Sharapova, and in 2014 she even made it into the last four, her best performance in the four most important tennis tournaments.

Only Simona Halep was able to stop the Darmstadt native back then.

She won 19 of her 31 matches in Paris, and Petkovic has a better record at no other Grand Slam tournament.

In the Corona years 2020 and 2021, when no spectators were allowed in Paris and the whole event seemed rather dreary, their love was put to a hard test: they lost in the first round.

In this way she had not wanted to leave the stage she loved.

"Accidentally Won a Tournament"

Actually, it should have been over for Andrea Petkovic long ago.

Actually, the tennis rackets should have been mothballed since last year, the constant trips around the world canceled and the grueling training sessions should be over.

The Darmstadt native had long since prepared herself for life after her professional career: as an author, columnist and TV presenter.

But then, apart from Corona, something else came up: success.

Last August in Cluj, Romania, something happened that Petkovic had not been able to do for six long years and that she herself had hardly expected: "I accidentally won a tournament and was back in 62nd place." Her seventh tournament win on the WTA Tour reopened doors to main draws that otherwise would have only gotten through the travails of qualifying rounds.

Previously, she had fallen out of the top 100 in the world rankings.

She is now in 65th place, and with her 70 points won in Paris, she could even return to the top 50 after the Grand Slam tournament.

“It gives me joy and adrenaline”

So will there be a thirteenth edition for the Darmstadt native in Paris in 2023?

Or will love cool down because Petkovic will notice over the course of this year that after almost 500 matches on the WTA tour, her body is too strained, regeneration is taking too long, there are no successes and another tennis season is more frustration than pleasure would mean?

In the past few days in Paris, she drew attention to herself by saying that she might be stuck for another year.

She wants to decide at the end of this season.

"The competition, this mental tearing together like on a rope pull, that gives me joy and adrenaline." If the Hessin's career, which was characterized by ambition, passion and injuries, were ever to be filmed, the film would be a melodrama and would have to be entitled "And annually greets the Petkovic".

Despite her diverse interests, tennis has top priority for the time being.

She hasn't been seen as a presenter on ZDF for quite a while, she only takes on the job if an appearance fits into her tournament schedule, which has meanwhile been thinned out.

Petkovic, on the other hand, does not give up writing that easily.

She eagerly writes columns, and she also has a second book in mind.

Keeping your clever mind busy in this way creates distraction and relaxation from the exertion of sport.

"If I don't write for an hour or two a day, I have nervous breakdowns," says Andrea Petkovic in her usual casual way.

And what would your screenplay for your own farewell look like?

Is she like the 37-year-old Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who played his last game in front of 15,000 spectators in Paris on Tuesday and was so heartily celebrated by fans, officials and teammates that tears came and his voice faltered?

Or like the former world number one Ashleigh Barty from Australia, who quietly said goodbye in March with an interview prepared for the rest of the world?

"I would like to do it like Tsonga, but that would be emotionally too much for me," says Andrea Petkovic.

So more of a quiet exit.

In this sense: Au revoir, Paris.