STUTTGART: German tennis star Angelique Kerber says that a career Grand Slam is “not unrealistic” after Saturday’s victory at Wimbledon left her needing just the French Open to complete the set of four Major titles.
In doing so she would emulate her compatriot Steffi Graf, until now the only German woman to have achieved the feat. But Kerber initially attempted to play down suggestions that she would focus her energy on Roland-Garros next year.
“I’m not thinking about that yet,” she told a press conference in Stuttgart in south-western Germany. “For me, it’s important that I’ve won three different Grand Slams (titles). We’ll see if Paris gets added to that.”
But the 30-year-old conceded that she believes it a feat of which she’s capable, having overcome her aversion to the clay court.”It’s definitely not an unrealistic goal,” she said. “I’ve proved that I’ve learned to enjoy playing on clay.”
Kerber’s win over Serena Williams at the All England Club took her to fourth in the world rankings, but the German said that she wasn’t desperate to regain her world-number-one status — though it would be nice.
“Of course it would be good,” she said. “I’ll do everything to ensure that I play well in the next few tournaments. But it’s not like I have to have it tomorrow.”
She was more forthright when it came to her home country, where she hopes her victory will inspire a boom in the sport similar to that created by the exploits of Graf and Boris Becker in the 1980s and’90s.
“I really hope that this Wimbledon title will unleash hype in Germany,” she said. “I hope that tennis comes into focus again.”
Kerber’s next stop comes on August 6 on the hard courts of Montreal,with the US Open — where her 2016 victory catapulted her to number one in the world for the first time — to come at the end of August. — dpa
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