WTA: Carina Witthöft is about to make a comeback
Carina Witthöft will make her comeback after a break in the competition for over a year.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Feb 16, 2020, 05:12 pm
The 25-year-old had said goodbye to tennis for an indefinite period after qualifying at the Australian Open 2019 - partly due to injury and partly because she was undecided about her future . In the meantime, Witthöft gave coaching lessons and had to listen to a lot of criticism.
Now the 25-year-old from Hamburg is making her comeback. Witthöft is registered at the ITF tournament in Altenkirchen, which is endowed with $ 25,000. The start is on February 23. Top here is Tamara Korpatsch, currently number 108 in the WTA ranking.
Witthöft won the tournament in 2015 - good prospects for a successful comeback.
A lot of fuss about Witthöft's time out
Barbara Rittner in particular was repeatedly disappointed by Witthöft, also in an interview with tennisnet . "It is her life and her decision. I find it incredibly sad because she has so much talent. And we promoted her, had a lot of hope. It came very suddenly. She always says or tweets that she wants to come back again , but I don't see a serious approach, "she said last summer. "Carina Witthöft is still thinking about what she wants. And if a player doesn't know that, she won't be successful in the long term."
Witthöft countered. "Disrespectful claims. The last personal interview was over a year ago. If you make such statements about players, they should at least be true. Respect and support in difficult times? Nothing!" She said on Twitter.
In a conversation with DER SPIEGEL , Witthöft finally stated that he would not come back "as long as I don't feel physically and mentally at 100 percent to be competitive". She also complained about the hardships on the tour. "You are surrounded by people all the time who don't give you anything. You have this negative energy all the time." And: "If I followed Rittner's advice and went to an academy in southern Germany, I would stop playing tennis tomorrow."
After the generation around Angelique Kerber, Andrea Petkovic or Julia Görges, Witthöft was considered a great hope of the DTB and already celebrated some successes at a young age. For example, she already entered the third round at all Grand Slam tournaments. At the end of the 2017 season, she also won her first WTA tournament in Luxembourg and ranked 48th in the WTA ranking in January 2018.