Tatjana Maria has revealed that she wants to keep playing tennis long enough to join forces with her 11-year-old daughter in the doubles. The German went on an incredible run at the Queen’s Club this week, coming through qualifying and beating four top-20 players in a row to become the oldest WTA 500 champion aged 37.
All week, the world No. 86 was watched on by her husband and coach, and their two daughters. Charlotte, aged 11, is hoping to follow in her mother’s footsteps by turning professional, and the Maria family already have a plan to replicate Coco Gauff’s early success on the tour.
On her way to the final at Queen’s, Maria mentioned her dream of hanging around the pro circuit long enough to play doubles with Charlotte.
While some thought it could have been a pipe dream, it appears that the newly-crowned Queen’s champion and her family are deadly serious, and Maria is motivated to play until Charlotte is old enough to join her.
“I mean, she will turn 12 [at the] end of the year, and you can start to play on tour when you’re 14,” Maria explained.
“So I have a few more years to go, but it would be really my goal to do this, because I would love to play with her on the tour [in] doubles.
“I mean, she’s on tour since she’s three months old, actually. It’s her dream. And if my body holds, if I really enjoy to play tennis, I would love to keep going and to play the doubles with her.”
Until recently, Maria’s husband and coach, Charles-Edouard, had also been mentoring Charlotte. But the 11-year-old now has her own coach, while she shares her mum’s physio and fitness trainer Guillaume.
The family sometimes has help travelling on the tour, but they often do it themselves. They are now keen to see Charlotte step up and follow in the footsteps of Gauff, who burst onto the scene when she was just 15 years old.
Maria continued: “I mean, we travel sometimes with my mum or my husband’s mum. We are also travelling a lot alone. I mean, we were doing this also often, because we could handle it pretty well.
“Now of course we have Guillaume also who is, yeah, my physio but also the fitness coach of Charlotte in the same time. I mean, Charlotte is practising now more professionally, and she needs a fitness coach because we are travelling all the time.
“So we had a girl the last two years. Now we have Guillaume who is travelling with us. Charlotte has her own coach now, because we try also to split it a little bit to be really — our goal would be we are really parents for her, mum and dad, and she has her team.
“It’s a little bit example of Coco Gauff also. We would like to do the same style, to be the parents at the end of the day. So, yeah, I mean, it’s a lot of organisation, let’s say, but it’s super nice.”
If Maria can keep playing well into her late 30s and early 40s, she and Charlotte could achieve their dream of playing doubles together. For now, the world No. 86 is basking in the glory of winning at Queen’s, in the first WTA Tour event here since 1973.
She added: “I’m a good example that even at my age you still can win big trophies. I mean, I’m super proud of myself that I could win this tournament, because actually, I believed always in it, and my husband too.
“That’s why we kept also going, because there was always this belief that I can win big tournaments and that I can do great things on the court. Yeah, so I’m really, really proud of this.”