{"id":699328,"date":"2026-06-12T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/699328\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T08:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:00:09","slug":"tatjana-maria-the-mother-of-all-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/699328\/","title":{"rendered":"Tatjana Maria: The Mother of All Qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I still have a French Open notebook column coming for y\u2019all soon to tie up a few loose ends from Paris, but in the meantime, I wanted to write about the mother-of-two and longtime resident of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. who has been the topic of much conversation at WTA 500 Queen\u2019s Club this week.<\/p>\n<p>No, it\u2019s not Serena Williams, but she did look pretty sharp in her comeback doubles win with Victoria Mboko on Tuesday. Her court sense and serve particularly impressed\u2014hitting 120 mph as a 44-year-old is truly legendary stuff. The only thing that looked super rusty in Serena\u2019s return, ironically, were her returns. It\u2019s a shame that Mboko\u2019s knee injury in singles the next day cut short their London run, but I\u2019m looking forward to catching up with Serena at her next stop in Berlin.  <\/p>\n<p>But no, the mother-of-two and longtime resident of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. who is the topic of this Bounces dispatch\u2014along with her family\u2014is Tatjana Maria, the defending champion at WTA 500 Queen\u2019s Club who wasn\u2019t given a wild card into this year\u2019s main draw despite her reign.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!8P27!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6f9b5541-84a1-4510-8f60-2ac6585e2fbc_1620x1080.jpeg\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img can-restack\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/6f9b5541-84a1-4510-8f60-2ac6585e2fbc_1620.jpeg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"971\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/6f9b5541-84a1-4510-8f60-2ac6585e2fbc_1620x1080.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:971,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:269996,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/i\/201151282?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6f9b5541-84a1-4510-8f60-2ac6585e2fbc_1620x1080.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\"   fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/a>Tatjana Maria with her husband Charly (left) and daughters Cecilia and Charlotte last year in Washington. (Photo by Hameltion for Bounces)<\/p>\n<p>38-year-old Maria is currently the oldest player in the WTA Top 100, but she finds herself on a rankings cliff this week: because her 500 points from winning last year\u2019s title are set to expire\u2014nearly half of her total 1,111 ranking points\u2014with an early loss this week, she could fall outside the WTA Top 120. <\/p>\n<p>Ahead of her tough second-round match at Queen\u2019s Club against Elena Rybakina, get to know Maria through her interviews with Bounces, hear the rumored real reason why she didn\u2019t receive a wild card, and meet her biggest project on tour: the burgeoning tennis career of her 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte.<\/p>\n<p>To read the rest of this feature profile, please subscribe to Bounces! -Ben<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I still have a French Open notebook column coming for y\u2019all soon to tie up a few loose&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-699328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}