After the great success, she recently had to take a short, involuntary break. In an interview with t-online, Maria reveals what she thinks of the term “tennis mom”, what her eldest daughter Charlotte has to do with her success and what she urgently wants from the WTA players’ association as a mother.
t-online: Ms. Maria, can you already understand what happened at Wimbledon?
Tatyana Maria: You’re slowly realizing all of that. It’s been a few days now and it went straight on. On Friday we flew directly to the Bundesliga in Düsseldorf, on Saturday I cheered for the girls (the TC Bredeney, who also secured the championship title, ed.). On Sunday we traveled to Lausanne. I would have had a match there on Wednesday after Wimbledon, but I couldn’t compete because of an infection in my buttocks.
Is it something tedious?
I had an MRI because it hurt, but it’s nothing serious. It’s an inflammation that takes a few days to clear up. I had to skip last week’s tournament in Palermo. Now I’m preparing for the hard court tournament in Washington in early August.
Back to Wimbledon: was it the best two weeks of your career?
The two weeks at Wimbledon were amazing. What means a lot to me is that I’ve seen that I can beat anyone and play up there. That gives me self-confidence for the next tournaments. I hope I can continue like this.
How annoying was it for you that there were no ranking points due to the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian professionals?
I don’t think much about it at all. I said to myself before the tournament that we have to accept that. It would of course have made a big difference in the ranking for me. I would have been in the main draw at many tournaments because I would probably have ended up around 30th place (currently no. 100, ed.). But I tell myself: what you’ve done once, you can do it a second time, and I hope that with the self-confidence I’ve gained I can get my points at the next tournaments.
The tournament victory in Bogota in April, now the semi-finals in Wimbledon – how do you explain that things are going so well after you return after the birth of your second child in April 2021?
I think it also has something to do with the fact that I train a lot with my daughter Charlotte. She’s really good at tennis. I’m their role model and I think that personally helps me to be more positive and believe in myself. Because I want the best and want to show her what she can learn from tennis – namely that anything is possible. Maybe that’s the main reason why it’s working so well at the moment.