Tatjana Maria storms into Queen's final after stunning Madison Keys
Tatjana Maria knows a thing or two about fairytales, coming from the land of the Brothers Grimm and the Pied Piper of Hamelin, but not even the veteran German could have envisioned what has happened to her at Queen's Club this week.
The 37-year-old arrived in west London having lost nine matches in a row and looking in danger of dropping out of the world's top 100. Now – improbably – she has powered into the final having won six matches in a row and taken the scalp of the reigning Australian champion, Madison Keys, in the semi-finals. 'I cannot believe it,' she said after outplaying Keys 6-3, 7-6. 'It's a dream come true.'
Maria's game has long been built on chaos. She likes to fiddle and slice, to seek unorthodox angles and patterns, to leave her opponents lost in her matrix. The swirling wind around Queen's beforehand must have been music to her ears. But, still, no one expected this.
If the world No 86 was nervous beforehand, it did not show. She held her opening service games comfortably before breaking to go 3-1 ahead when Keys hit a backhand long. From then on she dropped four points on serve for the rest of the first set.
It was not that Keys was playing badly. But her power was sometimes left untamed and she had no answer to the wiles and guiles of her opponent. Early in the second set she could only look in admiration as she was lured in with a drop shot before a volleyed lob went over her head.
Maria continued to press and at 2-2, Keys had to save a breakpoint at 30-40 with a 118mph ace. But when the American had a breakpoint chance of her own in the next game, she was unable to capitalise. After that she never got another proper sniff.
After the second set went to a tie-break, Keys missed a chance of an early mini-break when she put a simple volley into the net. But from then on Maria was unstoppable. A wonderful backhand pass and a 116mph serve put her on the verge of victory before a mis-hit smash from Keys sealed the win.
Maria seemed at a loss to explain how she had turned things around. 'You always have to keep going,' she said. 'You can never can stop, no matter how it goes. I am a really good example of this. I've had my ups and downs but I love to play tennis, I love this sport, and we live for these special moments.'
Sign up to The Recap
The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action
after newsletter promotion
This was certainly special. Having been a 159-1 outsider to win the tournament, Maria has now beaten three players in the world's top 15, including the former French Open finalist Karolina Muchova and the 2022 Wimbledon champion, Elena Rybakina.
Waiting for her in the final will either be the Olympic champion, Qinwen Zheng, or the American Amanda Anisimova. And who is to say the fairytale is over yet?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
18 minutes ago
- Telegraph
A year after angering his boss with a session in Ibiza, Carlos Alcaraz is at it again
Carlos Alcaraz's reaction to winning the greatest tennis final ever played? A trip to Ibiza, several celebratory shots of alcohol, and at least one 'very late' night. Arriving at Queen's Club on Sunday, a tanned and contented Alcaraz radiated Balearic vibes. He had just continued his annual tradition of nipping off to the Mediterranean after the clay-court season – a regular mini-break he described as a chance 'to turn off your mind a little bit'. How beneficial or otherwise will this latest recharge be? We should find out on Tuesday, when Alcaraz faces the mercurial shot-making of his compatriot, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Tennis tragics will remember that, 12 months ago, Alcaraz arrived here in a fug of exhaustion after a particularly vigorous Ibiza break. His Queen's title defence lasted just 99 minutes as he went down to Jack Draper in straight sets. After that slip-up – which remains one of only three defeats that Alcaraz has suffered on grass – his own manager Albert Molina accused him of 'very selfish' behaviour by prioritising his own desires over his tennis preparations. A year on, Alcaraz says he kept a lid on his recent party weekend, which he shared with the former Tottenham and Manchester United defender Sergio Reguilon among others. 'This year Ibiza was more chill,' Alcaraz, 22, said. 'Once I went to bed so late. Obviously I did some shots as well, but nothing more than that. Honestly, I rested a lot, physically and mentally. But I had fun, a nice three days. It was more than enough.' The ill-feeling around 2024's trip became a major plot point in Netflix's fly-on-the-wall documentary Carlos Alcaraz: My Way. As his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero told the cameras: 'I think it's great to disconnect but a part of your mind needs to remember you're a tennis player. He lost really quickly, and there's talk that he shouldn't have gone to Ibiza, he should have trained.' And yet, the clue lies in the title of that otherwise humdrum series: My Way. For Alcaraz, his way involves stopping to smell the roses – or, alternatively, down the tequila slammers – whenever he is not flogging his opponents around the four corners of the court. Neither was Queen's the biggest of deals. Whatever Ferrero might have thought about 2024's first-round defeat – which found Alcaraz in such a bedraggled state that one wondered if he was still hungover – normal service soon resumed. Less than a month after losing to Draper, Alcaraz produced arguably his most ruthless performance to overcome Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon trophy match. In five grand-slam finals to date – all of which Alcaraz has won – it was his only straight-setter. The moral of the story should be clear. Do not try to cage Alcaraz's inner tiger. Tennis is at its best when presenting a variety of game styles, and he is such a creative and romantic character that he brings multiple personalities to the court on his own. Alcaraz can hit through you with sheer power, or he can bewilder you with his touch shots. He can perform defensive miracles or serve you off the court (even if this last incarnation is extremely rare, having only been spotted during that Wimbledon final last year). Add in the contrast between Alcaraz's unpredictability and Jannik Sinner's one-note efficiency, and you end up with miracles like the final they played in Paris a week ago. All the statistics suggest that this extraordinary five-and-a-half hour epic achieved a greater cut-through than anything tennis has produced in the Instagram age. Yet there is no doubt that most neutrals were pulling for Alcaraz. That is why he is so valuable: the sport's new golden goose. As John McEnroe put it last week: 'Carlos is the best gift the post-Big Three generation could give us. And he's the only tennis player I'd pay a ticket for.' The danger is that we burn Alcaraz out before his time, because he is not as much of a monomaniac as Sinner or Djokovic. And while Alcaraz's manager Molina might have publicly queried his commitment, Molina has his own case to answer. He surely played a part in the numerous unofficial exhibition matches that Alcaraz signed up to last year, including the 'Netflix Slam' in Las Vegas and the 'Six Kings Slam' in Saudi Arabia. Given that Alcaraz seems to miss events with injury each year – including a forearm strain in the spring of 2024 and an adductor problem in April – Molina must bear his own responsibility, not only to his client but to the game as a whole. Someone should be encouraging Alcaraz to forego these diversions, no matter how lucrative they might be. He has already earned around £33 million in prize money from the official tour, even before you factor in endorsement deals. As his own mother Virginia put it in My Way: 'I don't want my son to turn into a worn-out toy later on.' Still, no matter how many potholes Alcaraz may yet encounter, we will always have Paris. 'I still watch it sometimes,' Alcaraz explained on Sunday, when asked about the French Open final. 'I still don't believe that I come back from that moment [when he faced three match points in the fourth set].' As he added, with his trademark boyish smile: 'A lot of people told me that it was the best final they have ever seen.'
Telegraph
24 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Mother of two Tatjana Maria beats Amanda Anisimova to win women's Queen's title
'A dream come true. [When] I came here, I was never thinking I could hold the trophy at the end. When we arrived my little girl said 'wow that's a nice trophy, so big' and I said 'OK let's go for it I will try to win it',' Maria said. 'In the end I've won it, it's incredible. So happy. Everything is possible if you believe in it. You go your way, doesn't matter which it is but you have to keep going. I want to show this to my kids and hopefully they are proud. It's amazing.' Maria, who knocked out top-20 players Karolina Muchova, Elena Rybakina and Madison Keys en route to the final, is the oldest WTA singles tour winner since 2020, when Serena Williams – who also returned to tennis after having children – won in Auckland, aged 38. She replaces Olga Morozova, who once coached a young Murray, as the most recent female winner at Queen's, and marked the venue's new chapter by scribbling 'queen of Queen's' on the camera. Maria entered this WTA 500 tournament at 86th in the rankings, but the triumph will catapult her to No 43 when they update on Monday when Emma Raducanu will also officially take over from Katie Boulter as British No 1. The 2022 German Wimbledon semi-finalist won her first WTA title on grass at Mallorca in 2018, following it with back-to-back clay court trophies at Bogotá in 2023.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Tigers veteran RHP John Brebbia designated for assignment
June 15 - Detroit Tigers right-hander John Brebbia was designated for assignment on Sunday and right-hander Tyler Owens was recalled from Triple-A Toledo. Brebbia, 35, is in his first season with the Tigers after signing a one-year free-agent deal in February. He was 1-0 with a 7.71 ERA in 19 relief appearances this season and has allowed three runs in each of his last two outings, both against the Cincinnati Reds this weekend. In eight major league seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals (2017-19), San Francisco Giants (2021-23), Chicago White Sox (2024), Atlanta Braves (2024) and Tigers, he is 16-21 with a 4.00 ERA in 373 appearances (21 starts). Owens, 24, made his major league debut May 1 and did not give up a run in two appearances. He had a 5.74 ERA in 24 relief appearances at Toledo. --Field Level Media
