Kerber nearly retired back in 2011: "It didn't make sense anymore"

Angelique Kerber is away from tennis at the moment as she is pregnant but in the meantime, she published her autobiography.

In the autobiography, Kerber touches upon many topics including the 2011 season which was the toughest one of her career. She lost 11 times in the first round failing to win back-to-back matches in the first seven months of the season.

Talking to BILD, Kerber said:

"Not at all. That wasn't typically me. I'm someone who sees things through to the end, even at school, where I didn't enjoy everything either. I've always been a perfectionist. If I didn't like my writing, I just wrote it again. But 2011 was a tough period. I had been knocked out on the first lap 11 times in a row, threatening to drop out of the top 100. That's when I felt it didn't make sense anymore."

She continued explaining that she questioned whether she wanted to continue:

"I didn't pick up a racket for weeks, but then my character came through again and it was in my head: I want it. Almost a question of will. And here we are at the title of the book. So at some point I came to and then had my breakthrough with the semi-finals of the US Open in 2011."

As she stated above, the breakthrough came at the 2011 US Open when she made the semi-finals while ranked 92 in the world.