At a Fed Cup meeting in Riga a few years ago, Andrea Petkovic said an interesting sentence: "The public only knows the German Angelique Kerber, but I also know the Polish one." was given to the winning German tennis team by the Latvian organizers.

Pirmin Clossé

sports editor.

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Kerber was injured, and Petkovic had to grumble for a doping test immediately after the match.

When she came back, the bottle was still untouched in the middle of the booth.

"And I'll put it this way," said Petkovic, "if Angie were there, she wouldn't have stood there for so long."

It is not to be expected that behind the facade of the seriously working, successful athlete Kerber is actually a party rocket that is always partying.

But the impression that Kerber has no interest in revealing all facets of her personality to the public was certainly not wrong in the past.

Now that her tennis career is on hold due to her first pregnancy, the Edel Sports publishing house has published "A Question of Will", Kerber's autobiography.

Would the rest of the world now learn more about the Polish Angie?

Tennis as a background story

The first finding: The biography of tennis player Angelique Kerber is surprisingly little about tennis.

At least if you only mean what's happening on the pitch.

The most important matches, special rallies, the mental duels with the most diverse types of opponents, all of this is only marginally mentioned on the 220 pages.

Sure, the 2018 Wimbledon final against Serena Williams forms a kind of framework.

Her other two Grand Slam victories in Melbourne and New York, promotion to world number one and the Olympic final in Rio also find their place.

Rather, it is about the question of how the restless life in the traveling circus of professional tennis, how all the ups and downs of competitive sports have and are having an effect on Kerber's psyche.

To that of tennis player Angelique Kerber, mind you, not necessarily to that of the person.

By Angie and Kerber

Because this distinction is important, and it is by no means a coincidence that it is also made quite clearly in the biography.

"I was concerned with separating the private from the personal," writes Kerber.

"I didn't want to share the former with the public." She is sticking to this resolution.

With few exceptions.

She has learned to clearly distinguish between "Kerber, the player, and Angie, the person", she writes.

And that she is happy that she has mostly succeeded.

Because if she had been as hard on Kerber as a person as she was on Kerber as an athlete, the former would probably have broken down.

The story of Angelique Kerber's tennis career is not least a story of self-doubt.

More than once she was on the verge of giving up everything, ending her career early and initially with little glory.

Kerber impressively describes how she reflected, motivated herself, fought out of every hole, no matter how deep.

As if from the shelf of guidebooks

"A Question of Will" is therefore not only reminiscent of a guide from the "Life Coaches" shelf, not only in terms of the title: a story for all those who are struggling with similar self-doubts.

About an athlete who has not always followed a straight path, but has always followed it in a straight line to the highest goals.

What always endures, however, is the separation of the private and the personal.

Even when she softens the boundaries in the final chapter a lot more than before.

When she talks about the loneliness of life on the move and without a partner.

When she reports how the emergency braking of her tennis life forced by the corona pandemic gave her a new perspective.

When she at least hints at how much she fulfills the private happiness of a permanent relationship and how happy she was about her surprising pregnancy.

Even now, she manages to do all of this without even mentioning her partner's name once.

In the end, what remains is an autobiography in which you learn a lot about “Kerber”, but only get an impression of “Angie”.

The good thing about it: The tennis player Kerber is exciting enough.

And for everything else, if in doubt, you can ask Andrea Petkovic.