« I want to be buried in Austria » – Diepresse.com

You have already made a career twice, only as a tennis player, then as an expert on TV. Was both planned?

Barbara Schett: My whole family played tennis, I was discovered with six by a trainer in Innsbruck and wanted to be with 14 professionals. That was very planned. Then I thought about the future a year before the end of my career. I am a person who needs a direction. I didn’t want to study when I still had to make up for the Matura. Tennis was always my great passion, I felt for working as a tournament ambassador, was allowed to go into the commentator cabin a few times for Eurosport. I wanted to see if I like it – and it got it. I didn’t fall on my mouth. I have slipped in, but I am already careful. Conscious, one could say.

Do many ex -athletes try it as sports journalists and fail?

I don’t see myself as a sports journalist, but as a tennis expert. I have never studied journalism and I don’t want to compare myself, real sports journalists are Obergurus for me. I often forget something, then I have to look again. Is this journalism when you look something? No idea. But you have to say that the Grand slams are exhausting when you comment and moderated. That is twelve to 14 hours a day for two weeks, and much is not foreseeable. We don’t know how long our programs take, 20 minutes or an hour. This permanent live on show is extremely tiring. But it is also incredibly fun.

For Eurosport they do the vast majority of the BBC and other channels. Why not at ORF?