Wimbledon: Slice, Slice, Baby – tennis mom Tatjana Maria continues to win
At the age of 34, Tatjana Maria is in the round of 16 of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time. The fact that it's at Wimbledon suits their style of play.
by Florian Goosmann from Wimbledon
last edit: Jul 01, 2022, 11:56 pm
“My slice will stay,” Tatjana Maria stated resolutely. Even if the next opponent will be Jelena Ostapenko. Or especially then?
Tatjana Maria is exotic when it comes to tennis and life on tour in general. In the past, you will remember, with the forehand mostly pulled through, the backhand slice and now and then the two-handed backhand. Since returning as a mother in 2015, suddenly with a one-handed backhand. And in recent years: mostly with the forehand slice.
She actually wanted to do more again, she revealed to tennisnet.com a few months ago, but then the tournament in Bogota followed, at a high altitude, and Maria decided to use the slice more often. Because if you don't pull the ball through the ball resolutely as an opponent on high ground, it will fly for miles. Maria's move worked, she won the tournament.
And now, in Wimbledon, on grass? Is the slice hot again? "My slice is definitely my first shot, especially on grass," said Maria after her 6: 3, 7: 5 victory over world number five Maria Sakkari, against whom she beat at the Australian Open (with a mostly solid forehand ) just lost. Maria explained that this is one of the reasons why she likes to play on grass so much: because of the slice and because she can sometimes go to the net, which, unlike many of her colleagues, she can really do. "I played my game perfectly today."
Tatjana Maria: "Everyone is stressed"
In 2018, Maria had already celebrated her first WTA tournament victory on Mallorca, on grass, and beat Elina Svitolina at the subsequent Wimbledon tournament. "I know that everyone is stressed, even before the match," she says proudly, people have respect for her and her game. "I can also play the slice at night."
After her victory, Maria thanked her husband during the on-court interview, ex-professional Charles Edouard Maria, with whom she has been in a relationship since 2012 and who believes in her so much. And without whom she wouldn't play anymore. As it is, the Maria family continues to trundle around the world, more successfully than ever before. Just a year after the birth of her second daughter Cecilia, Maria is back in the top 100, her best Wimbledon result to date was in 2015 with the third round (after the birth of her first daughter Charlotte), so now there is at least one more round to go further. "Maybe I should have started earlier," she joked about "having babies."
Ironically, daughter Charlotte was missing this time in the spectator area. Because in Wimbledon, as in all Grand Slam tournaments, there is childcare near the training area at Aorangi Park. "The two probably watched my match on TV," says Maria, because it's always turned on when a parent is playing. "It's the same squad as in Roland Garros. My kids love it here,” she says.
"There are more important things than a tennis match"
Maria also wants to be a role model in this respect, to show other players that you can also play successfully as a mother . And maybe also get the WTA tour to do more for families - just a support at the tournaments of the women's tour (where there are none). And a different regulation than the injured rule when returning from pregnancy, where there is "only" the "protected ranking" that actually belongs to injured actors.
That her husband is both her coach and her daughter's? "We would never argue about tennis, there are more important things than a tennis match," says Tatjana Maria resolutely. And the possible recipe for success for her great results: The focus in her life is on her children, "the family comes first, tennis second".
Even on a day like this, with reaching a round of 16 for the first time in a major tournament. And now? "I get my kids out of daycare and I'm the mom," she says. "It doesn't matter if I win or lose."
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