At the age of 35 and as a mother of two, the German is in her first Grand Slam semi-final. Even she didn’t expect that.
Tatjana Maria can hardly believe it: she is in the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
Women’s tennis has experienced a true youth craze lately. The just 20-year-old Pole Iga Swiatek had 37 wins in a row before she lost again for the first time last Saturday. A month ago, 18-year-old American Coco Gauff became the youngest player since Maria Sharapova in 2004 to reach the final of a Grand Slam tournament.
And now a German is rewriting history in Wimbledon: Tatjana Maria, a 34-year-old from the small town of Bad Saulgau in Baden-Württemberg, is in the semi-finals in Wimbledon on Thursday and meets the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, who is already 27 years old old is. Her two daughters Charlotte (8) and Cecilia (15 months) travel in Maria’s slipstream. Part of her daily prep ritual is hitting a few balls with her older daughter.
Maria has never progressed past the third round at any major
Nobody would have expected Tatjana Maria in the semifinals of Wimbledon – not even she herself. In January, her first business trip with the whole family to the Australian Open in Melbourne ended with first-round defeats in singles and doubles. She also lost in the first round in Roland-Garros. Her previous best result at a Grand Slam tournament was in 2015, also at Wimbledon, qualifying for the third round. In 15 years on the professional tour, she has only won two singles titles – the second in April at a rather insignificant clay court tournament in Bogotá.
And now Maria is the first German since Angelique Kerber in 2018 to reach the Wimbledon final. At the media conference after the quarter-final victory against her compatriot Jule Niemeier, she said that the whole thing was still somehow unreal for her. Maria is in 103rd place in the ranking. At Wimbledon, she beat top ten player Maria Sakari (5) and former French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko (12), among others.
During her first pregnancy, she switched her backhand from two-handed to one-handed. Previously she had only played slice on the backhand side, her French husband Charles-Edouard, who had been a reasonably good tennis player himself (ATP 398), had advised her to switch.
But whether one-handed, two-handed or by slice: the most important thing in Tatjana Maria’s life is still her two daughters. “It’s crazy that I’m in the semi-finals of Wimbledon. But most of all, I’m still a mother. After the media conference I will go to my daughters, change diapers and do all the things that mothers have to do.”
Kim Clijsters won three major tournaments as a mother
Tennis-playing parents are not uncommon on the circuit. Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have been fathers for years. There are also mothers on the tour. Serena Williams has been chasing her 24th major title since giving birth to her daughter. The Belgian Kim Clijsters was more successful. After the birth of her first daughter, she won the US Open twice more and once in Melbourne. However, she was in her late twenties and not in her mid-thirties like Maria now.
And the German is also the first mother of two in more than twenty years to win a tournament and is now in a Grand Slam semi-final just a year after returning to the tour. Your next hurdle, however, will not be easy. Ons Jabeur is the world number 2 and also a friend of the Maria family. So more emotional moments are guaranteed.