Julia Goerges retires from tennis at age 31

Julia Goerges (Steven Pisano, Wikimedia Commons)

Julia Goerges of Bad Oldesloe, Germany retired from tennis this past Wednesday at age 31 according to the Associated Press. Goerges was ranked as high as ninth on the WTA Tour, and is best known for reaching the semifinals of Wimbledon in 2018.

The timing of Goerges’s announcement might have been surprising to some. That is because Goerges was still playing tennis at a very high level. At the time of her retirement, Goerges was ranked a very respectable 45th in the world.

Goerges’s final match of her professional tennis career came at the French Open. After an impressive 6-3, 6-7, 6-1 win over American Alison Riske, Goerges lost in the second round to fellow German Laura Siegmund 1-6, 6-1, 6-3.

In her career, Goerges won seven singles titles. They came at the 2010 Austrian Open, the 2011 Stuttgart Open, the 2017 Kremlin Cup, the 2017 WTA Elite Trophy, the 2018 Luxembourg Open, and the 2018 and 2019 Auckland Open. In Auckland last year, Georges won her final women’s tennis tournament by beating 2019 United States Open champion Bianca Andreescu of Canada in the final, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1.

In Goerges’s magical run to the final four of Wimbledon two years ago, she beat reigning Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig of Puerto Rico 6-4, 7-6 in the first round, 2019 Wimbledon semifinalist Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic 7-6, 3-6, 10-8 in a dramatic three-set marathon, and 2016 French Open semifinalist Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands, 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 in the quarterfinals. However, in the semifinals, Goerges was beaten by 23-time grand slam champion, Serena Williams of the United States, 6-2, 6-4.

One could also make the argument that Goerges’s most famous match of her career came in the second round of Wimbledon in 2011. In a 7-6, 6-2 win over Mathilde Johansson of France, Goerges said the following to chair umpire Graeme Jones, “You need glasses…Also, learn how to pronounce my name properly.” Jones was pronouncing Goerges’s last name “gorgeous” when it was pronounced “gur-guess.”

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