Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

Photo courtesy WTA

The German Andrea Petkovic was really hurt. Her mother was ill and she couldn’t decide whether she should go home and spent time her, or stay on the tour. During the summer, she decided to press on.  But that was the wrong decision. She couldn’t concentrate anymore.

“It’s just been the past two or three months, I just sort of lost the passion for tennis,” she told the WTA Insider. “When I was at home I was feeling really happy. And the minute I went on tour I just sort of felt depressed. Really depressed in a way that I didn’t want to get out of bed at all. It was a difficult year for my family. I wanted to be at home.

“But because I’m a professional and I’m German, I still went and did all the practices and everything I had to do. It wasn’t like I just didn’t do it. I wasn’t going to just play the matches. I still practiced three hours a day. I still did my gym, I still did my workouts, I still did my fitness, I still went to the physios every day. I was still being professional with all this inside of me.”

This week, Petkovic decided to go to the Zhuhai tournament.  She lost against Elina Svitolina and injured her knee. On Thursday, she didn’t pull out, but when she played against Carla Suarez, she was double-bageled. She was miserable and wanted to go home.

“It just felt like torture. Every minute of it. “I was sort of questioning the tennis thing,” Petkovic said while crying. “I felt like maybe this was really the year for me to figure out if I want to play tennis because there are so many other things that I enjoy doing. I feel like somehow this was the first year I felt like I was losing time [playing tennis]. And it’s so strange because I’ve never felt that. Tennis was always something I chose and something I wanted to do and this year not so much anymore. I really have to figure out if I want to keep playing.”

Petkovic says that she will try to sleep for the next four days and after that, she will go to New York and Portland to see the sights. She is hoping that she will recover when she begins in 2016.

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.