Andrea Petkovic (, ; born 9 September 1987) is a German former professional tennis player. Born in Tuzla, SFR Yugoslavia, to Serbian father Zoran and Bosniak mother Amira, she moved to Germany at six months old and turned professional in 2006 at the age of 18. A former top-10 player, Petkovic reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 9 on 10 October 2011, becoming the first German female player ranked inside the top 10 since Steffi Graf in 1999. That year, she played in the quarterfinals of three Grand Slam tournaments as well as a Premier Mandatory final at the China Open, and qualified as an alternate to the WTA Tour Championships.
Petkovic suffered three separate injuries in 2012: a back injury in January, an ankle injury in August and a knee injury in December that kept her out for nine months, and almost saw her fall out of the top 200. She rebounded in 2014 by reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal at the 2014 French Open and later winning the WTA Tournament of Champions at the end of the season. Petkovic has won seven WTA Tour singles titles and one doubles title, as well as nine ITF singles and three ITF doubles titles. Petkovic became the German national champion in 2007 and 2009.
Early and personal life Andrea Petkovic was born in Tuzla, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia. When she was six months old, the family relocated to Germany. Petkovic first took to the tennis courts when she was six; her father Zoran Petković, former Yugoslav tennis player and member of the Yugoslavia Davis Cup team, was a coach at a club in Darmstadt at the time. He introduced her to the sport and later became her coach. She was able to finish high school before competing in tennis full-time because Zoran never pressured her into joining the professional circuit.
Apart from tennis, she likes to educate herself by reading; her favourite authors are Goethe and Wilde. Her mother Amira is a dental assistant while her younger sister Anja is a student. Petkovic graduated from high school in 2006 with an Abitur from the Georg-Büchner-Schule in Darmstadt. She has been studying political science at the FernUniversität Hagen since 2008.
Petkovic also has a successful YouTube channel which is home to her video blog entitled "Petkorazzi". In the blog, she makes fun of herself, gives fans chances to win prizes, and shows fans what life is like on the tour. She does the blog in both German and English. In April 2018, she started writing a column for the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Since the beginning of her professional career, she has kept a diary at irregular intervals about her life on the WTA Tour in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a major German newspaper. Petkovic obtained German citizenship in 2001. She speaks Serbian, German, English, and French. Petkovic is of Bosniak and Serb ancestry. In a 2009 interview with the WTA, she stated that her parents might move to Novi Sad, Serbia, where they have a second home. When asked how German she feels, Petkovic replied, "Obviously I'm German, but I always say my soul is still Serbian. Germans are generally more cool, reserved. I'm very emotional, have lots of fire in my personality. In that sense still feel very close to my heritage. For all that, there is much to appreciate about Germany. I feel like I am part of the 'system' and feel very rooted there."
Career Early career
Petkovic turned professional in 2006 after she finished school, but she had already won four titles on the ITF Circuit. She was the winner of the tournaments in Antalya, Podgorica (both in 2004), Davos and Alphen aan den Rijn (both in 2005).
In April 2007, she became a member of the German Fed Cup team. She played her first Grand Slam tournament at the 2007 French Open where she reached the second round, after coming through the qualifying without losing a set and beating Jarmila Groth. There she lost to later Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli. After this, and having some success on the ITF Circuit (she won the ITF title in Contrexéville in July 2007), she reached the top 100 of the WTA rankings for the first time. Because of that, she was able to play in the US Open main draw without having to qualify. She once again reached the second round after beating Audra Cohen. In round two she lost to Lucie Šafářová.
At the Australian Open in January 2008, in her first-round match against Anna Chakvetadze, she suffered a cruciate ligament rupture in her right knee after only two minutes of play. This prevented her from playing any tournament for almost eight months, which caused her ranking drop to 465. After the injury, she started playing mostly on the ITF Circuit again where she won a tournament in Istanbul in November 2008. She finished the year with a ranking of 315.
2009: First WTA Tour title In 2009, Petkovic played her first tournament at the Australian Open due to a protected ranking, where she reached the second round. She mostly kept on playing ITF tournaments until June with success. She won the Open Romania in Bucharest, defeating Jelena Dokić in the semifinals along the way, and regained a top-100 ranking.
In July 2009, Petkovic won her first WTA tournament in Bad Gastein, losing only one set throughout the tournament. In the final, she beat Raluca Olaru.The following week, she reached the semifinals in Istanbul, losing to Lucie Hradecká in three tight sets. After those two weeks, she achieved her then career high singles ranking of world No. 52.
For the rest of the year, she struggled to repeat her success but had another good tournament at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo where she came through the qualifying and reached the round of 16. In the second round, she had her win over a top-10 player in beating Svetlana Kuznetsova, but was knocked out by Agnieszka Radwańska.
2010: Breakthrough year; into top 50
She played her first tournament in 2010 in Brisbane, Australia, where she reached the semifinal before losing to eventual champion Kim Clijsters. After that tournament, she reached the top 50 of the WTA rankings for the first time.
Petkovic's best singles performance in a Grand Slam event came at the US Open. Her first two matches were three-set upset victories over Nadia Petrova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. She performed an on-court dance following both triumphs. After she received a third-round walkover due to an injury to Peng Shuai, Petkovic lost her first career Arthur Ashe Stadium appearance to eventual tournament finalist Vera Zvonareva.
2011: Break into top 10; three Grand Slam quarterfinals
Returning to the Brisbane International, and with coach Petar Popović, Petkovic improved on her previous best semifinal appearance by reaching the final, where she lost to Wimbledon semifinalist Petra Kvitová.
Petkovic reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, where she was defeated by eventual finalist Li Na, her best achievement in a Grand Slam championship of her career.
Petkovic then played Fed Cup for Germany and helped them to a win over Slovenia with two wins in singles rubbers.
Petkovic defeated world number one Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, eventually reaching the semi-finals.
Petkovic won her second WTA Tour title in Strasbourg, defeating Marion Bartoli by retirement in the second set. After that performance, Petkovic reached her new career-high ranking of No. 12 as of 23 May 2011.
As the 15th seed, Petkovic reached the quarterfinals of the French Open.
In August, coach Dušan Vemić joined the team. Petkovic became the sixth German player in history to crack the top 10 by winning her opening match at the Southern California Open in San Diego against American player Alexa Glatch.
At the US Open, Petkovic was seeded tenth. She reached her first ever quarterfinals spot at the US Open against the world No. 1, Caroline Wozniacki. She performed her trademark dance to delight the audience after her fourth round win. On 8 September she lost to Wozniacki.
Seeded ninth at the China Open, Petkovic reached the final, where she lost to Agnieszka Radwańska. It was her last match of the year. She was seeded second at the Linz Open in October but withdrew before the tournament began, citing a right knee injury. In 2011, Petkovic reached her highest ranking alongside her then coaching staff (Popovic/Vemić).
2012: Injuries and out of top 100
Her first tournament of 2012 was the Brisbane International in January. Seeded second, she reached the quarterfinal before losing to eventual winner Kaia Kanepi. Petkovic then played at the Sydney International the following week, where she lost to Agnieszka Radwańska in the second round. During the match, Petkovic received treatment for what was revealed the following day to be a double stress fracture of her spine and a spinal disc herniation. She explained: "I've been having some back problems for the last three or four months. I've been struggling with it, but I've always believed it was going to be fine and so I pushed through the pain. The last two weeks in Australia I've been having bigger problems and I could only play for 30–45 minutes without pain." As a result, Petkovic withdrew from the Australian Open the following week, where she would have been seeded 10th. The injury ultimately kept her out for three months.
Petkovic made her comeback in a Fed Cup match in April, losing to Samantha Stosur. She then played at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. In her second round match against Victoria Azarenka, Petkovic was down 2–6 and 4–4 when she rolled her right ankle. She was forced out with what was later revealed to be torn ankle ligaments, which required surgery and kept her out for another four months, including the French Open, Wimbledon, and the London Olympics. She said of the injury: "I knew immediately that it was bad because I heard everything crack. I tried to pull my foot up, and it just flopped there. The first thing I thought was: 'Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.' With 4,000 people watching. In Germany." She attended weeks of rehabilitation to rebuild the muscles in her leg, working seven hours a day, five days a week.
Ahead of her return to the tour, Petkovic was worried that she had fallen behind: "I was really scared that I would not be able to compete with the top players and that I might not be able to get back to where I was. Your expectations once you were in the top 10 are to be back in the top 10. Not to be in the top 30 – you're not going to be satisfied with that. I'm definitely scared of that." Petkovic made her second comeback of the year at the New Haven Open in mid-August, reaching the second round. At her next three tournaments, the US Open in August, the Pan Pacific Open in September and the China Open in October, Petkovic was eliminated in the first round, by Romina Oprandi, Petra Martić, and Jelena Janković, respectively. After her defeat in China, Petkovic fell to world rank 192, her lowest since March 2009. She received a wildcard for the Generali Ladies Linz in October, beating Záhlavová-Strýcová in the first round and losing to Ana Ivanovic in the second round. She had much more success in her final two tournaments of the year, reaching the semifinals of the Luxembourg Open and the Royal Indian Open By this time, her world ranking had risen to 126.
Petkovic's final match of 2012 was on 29 December in the 2013 Hopman Cup against Ashleigh Barty. She won the first set 6–4 but appeared to be suffering from a knee injury late on in the set. She received treatment for it before the second set but could not continue and retired from the match in tears.
2013: Comeback from injury; two WTA Tour finals