New York: The chain of tennis retirements hasn’t stopped yet as doubles Grand Slam champion Jonathan Erlich, who won Australian Open in 2008 and reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2003 and 2015, will follow Roger Federer, Serena Williams, and the other players that left the tour this year.
Novak Djokovic will accompany Erlich in the doubles draw of the Tel Aviv Open, his last ever professional tournament, reports tennisworldusa.
Djokovic, who won his only doubles title alongside Erlich in 2010, announced his on-court collaboration with Jonathan. Watch Djokovic’s message here: Novak Djokovic will reunite with Grand Slam winner during “last dance” on court.
Besides Federer, Serena, and Erlich, Kirsten Flipkens and Andrea Petkovic are other well-known tennis players that said goodbye to professional tennis in 2022.
“Still have a tremendous amount of passion for the game. It’s more the body that is not allowing me to play tennis anymore in a way that I want to play it, train the way I want to train. It was fitting for me that I lost to a very young player.
To somebody that’s the future of tennis, so that felt fitting. I did feel this year also for the first time that my narrative has been told, I think I brought everything to the game that I had to give. Obviously it’s not in an amount as Serena, but in my own little world, I feel like I brought everything to it and my narrative was done.
After Andrea Petkovic announced her retirement, the German tennis player posted a photo marking her first day out of the WTA circuit that got some funny remarks. “First day of retirement, enjoying my sixpack while it lasts!” Petkovic captioned the photo
