Spartan Sakkari’s journey to the top 20 (Part 3 of 4)
AGONAsport’s Andrew Stamas looks at Greek tennis star Maria Sakkari’s gradual rise to the top 20, in the third of a four-part series.
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After a big end to the 2017 season, there were high expectations for Sakkari in 2018. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned for the Greek early in the new year, as she lost her first five matches of 2018. At one point, her ranking even dropped to 62, following her first-round exit at the Australian Open. She was eventually able to get a few wins under her belt, prior to the Premier Mandatory hardcourt events in Indian Wells and Miami. She reached the fourth round at Indian Wells, where she was the only player to win a set against eventual champion Naomi Osaka of Japan throughout the entire tournament. Prior to that loss, she won her first three rounds all in straight sets. These included wins over the likes of world number 21 Ashleigh Barty of Australia, and world number 16 Coco Vandeweghe of the United States. The Greek also reached the third round in Miami, which put her at a new career-high ranking of 47 in the world.
Sakkari then got to play in Greece for the first time in over three years, as Athens hosted the Fed Cup Europe/Africa Group II event in April. There, she comfortably won all of her singles matches and came from a set and a break down in the decisive doubles match of the promotional play-off against Luxembourg (with teammate Valentini Grammatikopoulou), leading Greece to promotion. For the first time since Sakkari made her Fed Cup debut in 2012, Greece were heading back to Group I.
The Greek was able to carry this momentum to her next event, making the semifinals at the 2018 Istanbul Cup the very next week. This was just her second career semifinal on the WTA tour, and her ranking moved up to 42 as a result, surpassing her mother’s career-best ranking of 43. At the Premier Mandatory event in Madrid, Sakkari lost in the first round to eventual runner-up Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands. However, the Greek went on to beat her in the first round of Rome the following week, with Bertens being ranked 15th in the world. Sakkari then earned the second top 10 win of her career in her next match, defeating world number five Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic. Sakkari’s run came to an end in the round of 16 at the hands of former world number one Angelique Kerber of Germany, but this was still a good run for the Greek at a Premier 5 event. Two weeks later, Sakkari became the first Greek woman to win a main draw match at the French Open since 2003. She went on to beat world number 23 Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain (who she had lost to in Paris the previous year) in the second round, before falling to Russian Daria Kasatkina (world number 14) in three sets in the third round. After these successful showings in Rome and Paris, Sakkari moved up to 33 in the WTA rankings.
The 2018 grass court season did not go as planned for Sakkari, as she fell in the first round of all three tournaments played. This included Wimbledon, and her ranking soon dropped to 50 in the world. After almost a month off, Sakkari returned to tour at the Premier tournament in San Jose, California. There, she cruised into the quarterfinals where she upset American Venus Williams (then ranked 14) to reach her third career WTA tour semifinal. She was down a set and a double break in the semifinals against American Danielle Collins, but fought back to take the match in three sets. This put her into her first career final on the WTA tour. She would go on to lose to Romania’s Mihaela Buzarnescu in that final, but her ranking rose from 49 to a new career-high of number 31.
The rest of her summer wasn’t too eventful, though she did beat Osaka (then ranked 19th) in the first round of Cincinnati, just before Osaka went on to win the US Open. At the US Open, Sakkari was seeded at a major for the first time in her career, but fell in the second round to American Sofia Kenin in three sets. This was Kenin’s second consecutive win over the Greek at a major, having beaten Sakkari at Wimbledon that year, also in three sets.
Sakkari reached another tour semifinal afterwards, this time in Seoul. There, she lost to Bertens (the eventual champion), but moved up to another career-high ranking of 29 in the world. Sakkari then lost in the first round of her last four tournaments of the 2018 season, all in straight sets. She finished the season ranked 41 in the world, and announced that she would no longer be working with Thomas Johansson. Her new coach would be Tom Hill, a Brit who previously served as her assistant coach and hitting partner under Johansson.
Sakkari began her 2019 season playing at the Hopman Cup with Stefanos Tsitsipas. This marked Greece’s first appearance at the mixed team event since 2002. Sakkari won two of her three singles matches, with her only loss coming against Serena Williams. Sakkari and Tsitsipas won two doubles matches, which happened to be over the United States (featuring Williams) and Switzerland (featuring Roger Federer). Sakkari was able to bring this form to Melbourne, where she reached the third round of the 2019 Australian Open. En route, she defeated 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in the first round.
Following that, Sakkari was able to help Greece avoid relegation in the Fed Cup, but lost in the first round at three consecutive tour events. It was a tough time for the Greek, as she had suffered a small injury and was also trying out a new coach in Romanian Andrei Pavel. Soon after, Sakkari stuck with Hill as her sole coach and ended her losing streak with a dramatic three set win over Serbia’s Olga Danilovic in Miami. However, a second round loss to world number two Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic saw Sakkari’s ranking slip to 50.
Sakkari then began her clay season with a bang, getting to the quarterfinals in Charleston and beating world number six Bertens along the way. A few weeks later, Sakkari would win her first WTA title in Rabat, Morocco. There, she won five matches in a row including one over top seed and defending champion Elise Mertens of Belgium (world number 18) in the quarterfinals, and one over former world number four Johanna Konta of Great Britain in the final. In the final, she came back to win the match in three sets after being down a set and a break. After this tournament, Sakkari’s ranking went up from 51 to 39. Konta’s ranking went from 47 to 15 over the next two months, showing that her level in Rabat was much higher than her ranking at the time, thus making Sakkari’s win over her even more impressive.
Aside from giving her a boost in the rankings, Sakkari’s title in Rabat was significant for other reasons as well. Not only did Sakkari become the first Greek player to win a WTA singles title in over 11 years, but she was also the first to ever win one on clay. Additionally, Stefanos Tsitsipas won the ATP title in Estoril, Portugal the following day. This made him the first Greek man to ever win an ATP clay court title, concluding a historic weekend for both Greek men’s and women’s tennis. The two would continue to ascend up the rankings in the subsequent tournaments throughout the rest of the season, as to be seen in the fourth (and final) part of this four-part series.
