I knew I’ll come back: Angelique Kerber

DUBAI: Angelique Kerber may have scored her biggest victory yet at the end of last year, when the German returned home to Puszczykowo, Poznan in western Poland. It wasn’t achieved on the court, but it was decisive.
She was staring at a 27-tournament title drought, dating back to the 2016 US Open, questioned and doubted, written off as a one-season wonder, but she knew she wasn’t done yet.
“I was sitting at home, I told myself, this is not the end,” Kerber said on Thursday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis championships, where she made her second successive semifinal, outsmarting the third-seeded Karolina Pliskova 6-4, 6-3 in 74-minutes. “I am a fighter. I knew I will come back and I will go through all the tough pre-season, fighting back. This is how I am.”
“I tried my best you know. I'm still here,” she said of a season which she returned without silverware. “Now I'm getting more stronger. Mentally I know what to expect, I know how to get through, good and bad things. I came back after a tough year. Now I just try to enjoy much more things on and off court.”
Kerber, who broke early in both sets against the thirdseeded Czech, will play defending champion Elina Svitolina in the last four on Friday. “It's great to be back in the top 10, playing good tennis again. But for me my goal is to improve my game, enjoy my tennis, try to continue how I started the year.”
Kerber ended 2017 at No.21, making one final in Monterrey and two semifinals in Dubai and Tokyo, but the key to last year lay in the fact that she stuck with it, pushing, trying to find a way.