Maria Sakkari

Maria Sakkari is the most accomplished player Greece has produced on the women's side, born in Athens on 25 July 1995 into a tennis family — her mother, Angeliki Kanellopoulou, was a WTA top-50 singles player. She picked up a racquet at six, left home for Barcelona at 18 to harden her training base, and turned professional in 2015 after debuting in a tour main draw as a US Open qualifier.

The game runs on engine and intent. Sakkari is one of the fittest athletes on tour, a right-hander who hits flat and heavy off both wings and backs it with a serve that can crack 120 mph. She doesn't construct points so much as overpower them — short rallies, first-strike intent, ground covered that few peers can match. The recurring knock has been the finishing touch: a forehand that wavers under closing pressure and a return game that can flatten when the serve isn't carrying her.

Her peak arrived in 2021, when back-to-back major semifinals — Roland-Garros and the US Open — carried her toward a career-high world No. 3 in early 2022. She owns titles but never a Slam final, the defining gap in a résumé that for a stretch looked built for one. At her best she traded blows with the very top of the sport, with wins over the likes of Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Naomi Osaka on the biggest stages.

Now 30 and ranked No. 37, Sakkari is working back toward the seeding tier she occupied for years, grinding through the 2026 calendar from Indian Wells through the clay swing and Roland-Garros. The physical baseline remains; the question, as ever, is whether the forehand holds when the draws get heavy.