Laura Siegemund

Laura Siegemund is the German tactician who turned everything the power era discarded — slice, drop shots, wrong-footing junk, and a chess player's patience — into a career that's still producing deep runs at 38. Born 4 March 1988 in Filderstadt, she was steered into the sport by her father Harro, a former handball player turned tennis coach. She first played ITF Circuit matches in 2002 and turned pro in 2006, then spent the better part of a decade grinding qualifying — at Wimbledon she reached her first Grand Slam main draw only after exiting ten times in qualifying, and didn't crack the top 100 until 2015.

The game is built on disruption, not pace. Her style is versatile, defined by tactical intelligence and a wide variety of shots — and her psychology degree from the University of Hagen is no accident, given how much of her edge is mental rerouting. Her singles career-high is No. 27, reached in August 2016, with two WTA titles, and her best Grand Slam singles results are quarterfinals at the 2020 French Open and 2025 Wimbledon. Both singles trophies came in unmistakable contexts: Båstad in 2016, then her home Stuttgart Open in 2017, where she beat three top-10 opponents before a torn right ACL at Nürnberg ended the season.

Doubles is where the hardware piled up. She hit a doubles career-high of No. 4 in January 2024, won 14-plus tour titles, the 2020 US Open and 2024 French Open mixed, the 2016 US Open mixed, plus the 2023 WTA Finals and the 2022 Miami Open. She also helped Germany win the United Cup, partnering Alexander Zverev to beat Iga Świątek and Hubert Hurkacz in the deciding mixed.

This season she's hovering just outside the top 40, with a Dubai doubles final alongside Zvonareva and singles losses to the likes of Świątek and Elina Svitolina — still rerouting the tour one slice at a time.