"It felt like Caroline Wozniacki had committed blasphemy": Andrea Petkovic states how tennis has changed over the years

Former German tennis player Andrea Petkovic has opened up about the change in approach in tennis in recent years. Like every sport, tennis is going through a phase of evolution. Newer formats have been tried, along with some changes in rules and the introduction of technology to make error-free rulings during matches.

Petkovic, in her recent blog, ‘How tennis has changed, ' talked about the changes in the sport that felt like a big thing in the past. She referred to the incident, including the former world number one Caroline Wozniacki, who came under the spotlight for changing a racquet during her poor form. Petkovic stated that at that time, it felt like Wozniacki committed ‘blasphemy’ whereas now, players are now used to changing their racquets, strings and clothing sponsors and no one pays much attention to it.

"It has become normal to experiment with material,” she wrote. “Players are changing racquets, strings and clothing sponsors like I used to change boyfriends when I was still young and reckless (it was obviously their fault, not mine). I remember vividly what a shock it was to hear Caroline Wozniacki had changed from Babolat to Yonex and everybody blaming the racquet change for when she dropped from number 1 to somewhere around 70. It felt like Caroline had committed blasphemy.”

Wozniacki became the world number one in October 2010 and managed to stay at the top for 71 weeks between 2010 and 2012. However, her performance took a serious hit after that, as she was ranked in the 70s in 2016. During that time, she decided to change her racquet brand from Babolat to Yonex. Wozniacki, who has won one Grand Slam in her career, which was the Australian Open back in 2018, recently returned to the court after taking a lengthy time off but has failed to produce similar kinds of performances.