Andrea Petkovic, born on September 9, 1987, in Tuzla, SFR Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina), is a German former professional tennis player of Serbian and Bosniak descent. Her father, Zoran, a former Yugoslav tennis player, and her mother, Amira, moved the family to Darmstadt, Germany, when Andrea was six months old. She obtained German citizenship in 2001 and speaks Serbian, German, English, and French fluently. Petkovic has often expressed a strong connection to her Serbian roots, once stating, “Obviously I’m German, but I always say my soul is still Serbian.”
Petkovic began playing tennis at age six, introduced to the sport by her father, who also coached her early in her career. She showed promise early, winning four ITF titles (Antalya, Podgorica, Davos, and Alphen aan den Rijn) before finishing high school in 2006 at Georg Büchner Schule in Darmstadt. After graduating with an Abitur, she turned professional that same year and later pursued political science studies at FernUniversität Hagen starting in 2008.
Petkovic’s professional career spanned from 2006 to 2022, during which she achieved a career-high WTA singles ranking of world No. 9 on October 10, 2011, the first German woman in the top 10 since Steffi Graf in 1999. She won seven WTA singles titles, one WTA doubles title, nine ITF singles titles, and three ITF doubles titles.
A stroll through her Instagram finds Petkovic posting "artistic" photos of herself and travels -- shots include David Bowie, Bob Dylan, German artist Christian Awe, Jackson Pollack, etc. You might say she's a "thinking woman's" athlete, a reader of Thomas Piketty and Ernest Hemingway. She's smart, beautiful and and an incredible tennis player. A sporting lass, through and through.
