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‘If I knew that before…’ – Angelique Kerber blames Australian Open defeat on quarantine


Former champion Angelique Kerber has blamed hard quarantine for her Australian Open defeat to Bernarda Pera.

Kerber, who won the tournament in 2016, saw her game absolutely collapse against he unseeded American before crashing to a 6-0, 6-4 defeat.

She, though, says if she knew she would be forced to enter hard quarantine in Melbourne due to potential exposure to someone on her flight who returned a positive coronavirus test, she would not have come at all.

“I don’t know, maybe if I knew that before, to stay two weeks’ in the hard quarantine without hitting a ball, maybe I would think twice [about coming],” Kerber said.

“I was not feeling the rhythm that I was before the two weeks, to be honest.

“I was really trying to stay positive but you feel it, especially if you play the first match in a Grand Slam against an opponent who doesn’t stay in the hard lockdown.

“But I was trying to take the motivation for this tournament because it’s one of my favourite tournaments.

“I knew that we play with a little bit of fans, which makes tennis playing much more fun. So that was my motivation.”


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Michael Graham, Tennishead.net Editor, has been a professional sports journalist for his whole career and is especially passionate about tennis. He's been the Editor of Tennishead.net for over 5 years and loves watching live tennis by visiting as many tournaments as possible. Michael specialises in writing in-depth features about the ATP & WTA tours.