Tatjana Maria completed an extraordinary week of giantkilling in London by becoming the surprise first women’s champion at Queen’s Club in 52 years as she defeated Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 6-4.
Maria, a 37-year-old German qualifier, is the oldest WTA 500 champion in history. She had arrived at Queen’s Club on a nine-match losing run before building momentum from the qualifying draw and defeating four top-20 opponents in a row.
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Despite her poor form and lowly ranking of No 86, Maria has significant pedigree on grass, reaching the semi-finals of Wimbledon in 2022. Her tricky toolbox of varied shots is built for grass and she has befuddled a series of elite opponents with her ability to keep the ball incredibly low and slow. Her brilliant slices off both sides force opponents to generate their own pace.
As was the caseagainst Madison Keys, the reigning Australian Open champion, and the 2022 Wimbledon champion, Elena Rybakina, two of the biggest ball-strikers on the tour, Anisimova looked extremely uncomfortable from the beginning, spraying unforced errors and unable to find her range or rhythm. Alongside her disciplined, constant junkballing and the ease with which she drew Anisimova, another enormous ball-striker, into uncomfortable positions on the court while exposing the one-dimensional nature of her game, Maria served and defended extremely well.
The grass-court season is notoriously short but two of Maria’s four career WTA titles have now come on the surface after she won her first career title at the Mallorca Open in 2018. After closing out an incredible win, Maria immediately sprinted over to her player box, where she embraced her husband, Charles-Édouard Maria, who is also her coach, and her daughters, 11-year-old Charlotte and four-year-old Cecilia.