Maria Sakkari · Biography

On 1 September 2015, Maria Sakkari played her first Grand Slam main-draw match. She had come through qualifying at the US Open and lost in the first round to China’s Wang Qiang. Born in Athens on 25 July 1995, the Greek player is right-handed and hits a two-handed backhand. After that tournament she entered the WTA top 200 for the first time, at No. 185.

Family and early years

She grew up in a tennis family. Her mother, Angeliki Kanellopoulou, played professionally and reached the world top 50. Her father is Konstantinos Sakkaris. Her parents put a racket in her hands when she was six. As a teenager she left Athens for Barcelona to train, and that is where she built the base of her game. In 2012 she made her debut for Greece in the Fed Cup, the women’s national-team competition that was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in 2020.

First seasons on tour (2015-2018)

She turned professional in 2015. Her first Grand Slam match win came at the 2016 Australian Open, in the first round against Wang Yafan. On 11 July that year she broke into the top 100 at No. 97. From 2017 she was coached by Sweden’s Thomas Johansson, the 2002 Australian Open champion. In 2018 she reached her first WTA final, in San Jose, and lost it to Romania’s Mihaela Buzărnescu. The same year she began working with British coach Tom Hill, who would coach her for most of her career.

First title and the top 10 (2019-2021)

In May 2019 she won her first WTA title, in Rabat, Morocco. In the final she came back from a set down to beat Britain’s Johanna Konta 2-6, 6-4, 6-1. At the 2020 Australian Open she reached the fourth round, where she lost to Petra Kvitová. That season she served the sixth-most aces on tour, 144 in 31 matches. The breakthrough came in 2021. At Roland Garros she beat the defending champion, Iga Świątek, 6-4, 6-4 in the quarter-finals. She lost the semi-final to Barbora Krejčíková 7-5, 4-6, 9-7 in a match that lasted more than three hours. In September she became the first Greek woman to reach a US Open semi-final, where she lost to Emma Raducanu. Her run to the Ostrava final, which she lost to Anett Kontaveit, took her into the top 10 on 27 September 2021. At that year’s WTA Finals she beat Aryna Sabalenka in the group stage and lost to Kontaveit again in the semi-finals.

World No. 3 and the Guadalajara title (2022-2023)

On 21 March 2022 she reached No. 3 in the WTA rankings. It was her career high and made her the first Greek woman in the top 5. She got there after the Indian Wells final, which she lost to Świątek 6-4, 6-1. That year she played three more finals: St. Petersburg (lost to Kontaveit), Parma (to Mayar Sherif) and Guadalajara (to Jessica Pegula). At the 2022 WTA Finals she won all three group matches, against Pegula, Sabalenka and Ons Jabeur, before losing to Caroline Garcia in the semi-finals. In 2023 she worked with Australia’s Mark Philippoussis and lost the Washington final to Coco Gauff. In September she went back to Guadalajara, reached the final without dropping a set and beat American Caroline Dolehide 7-5, 6-3. It was the first WTA 1000 title won by a Greek woman.

Playing for Greece

At the 2023 United Cup, a mixed team event, she helped Greece reach the semi-finals, where the team lost to Italy. At the 2024 edition she won all three of her singles matches in straight sets, against Angelique Kerber, Leylah Fernandez and Daniela Seguel. She represented Greece at the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, and at Paris 2024. In Paris she reached the singles round of 16 and lost to Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk.

Indian Wells, coaching changes and the Athens final (2024-2026)

In March 2024 she reached the Indian Wells final again and lost to Świątek again, this time 6-4, 6-0. That year she was coached by American David Witt. In 2025 she went back to working with Tom Hill. In February 2026 she beat Świątek in Doha on her way to the semi-finals, where she lost to Karolína Muchová in three sets. In July 2026 she played the Athens tournament as the fourth seed and reached the final, her first since March 2024. Forty years earlier, in 1986, her mother had played the final of the Athens Trophy, the previous tour event in the Greek capital. On 19 July 2026, Krejčíková beat her in the final 7-6(5), 6-3.