Tatjana Maria

Tatjana Maria, née Malek, is the German who refuses to follow the script. She played her first events on the ITF Circuit in 2001 and made her WTA main-draw debut in 2006 — a career now spanning more than two decades, built across maternity leaves rather than interrupted by them. She first cracked the Top 100 in May 2007 but has enjoyed her best results since giving birth to her first daughter, Charlotte, in 2013. Her husband, Charles-Edouard, coaches her full-time, and the family travels the tour as a unit with daughters Charlotte and Cecilia.

The game is the reason fans tune in. Maria is one of the last true slice merchants in the women's game, leaning on a rare single-handed slice backhand and tactical play rather than power — an old-school, slice-heavy style that's an anomaly in the modern power-driven WTA. On grass especially, the low, awkward bounce off both wings drags bigger hitters out of rhythm, and she follows it forward with sharp net work.

The defining season was 2022. Ranked No. 103, she ran to her first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon — the first time she'd ever advanced past the third round at a major — before losing to Ons Jabeur. Along the way she dismantled the power games of Sorana Cirstea, Maria Sakkari and Jelena Ostapenko. The encore came three years later: at the WTA 500 Queen's Club in 2025, she came through qualifying and beat four straight Top 20 players — Karolina Muchova, Elena Rybakina, Madison Keys and Amanda Anisimova — for her fourth career title. At 37, she became the oldest WTA singles finalist since Serena Williams in 2020.

That title pushed Maria to a career-high No. 36 in July 2025, achieved at 37 years and 11 months old. Now ranked in the low 50s, she remains a live grass-court threat and one of the most-played figures in Open Era history — third behind only Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert in total singles matches contested.