‘I’m still here!’ Maria, 37, stuns Rybakina to reach Queen’s semis

Three years after her stunning run to the Wimbledon semifinals as a 34-year-old mother of two, Tatjana Maria is doing it again on grass.

Watched by husband Charles-Edouard and 11-year-old daughter Cecilia, the qualifier continued to slice and dice her way through the HSBC Championships draw with her biggest victory of the week, upsetting No. 4 seed Elena Rybakina 6-4, 7-6(4) in 1 hour and 45 minutes.

“I’m still here!” Maria said in her on-court interview. “And I’m living this dream with my family with me. … It’s a perfect example to never give up and always keep going.”

Keys edges Shnaider in three sets to reach Queen’s semifinals

The result is Maria’s second Top 20 victory at Queen’s this week, following her second-round defeat of Karolina Muchova — which was her first win over an opponent in that echelon since that 2022 Wimbledon showing. The 37-year-old advances to her first tour-level semifinal since Cleveland 2023, and her first above WTA 250 level since — you guessed it — Wimbledon 2022.

Maria will face another big hitter in the last four, No. 2 seed Madison Keys. The Australian Open champion navigated past No. 5 seed Diana Shnaider in a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 clash of powerful strikes to reach her fourth semifinal of 2025, and first since Indian Wells in March. Keys leads the head-to-head against Maria 3-0, including a 6-4, 6-4 victory in their only previous grass-court meeting at Wimbledon 2015.

Slicing, dicing … and big serving: From the outset, Maria’s sliced groundstrokes off both wings, with their low, awkward bounces on the grass, proved effective at either keeping Rybakina off balance or drawing errors from the Kazakhstani. The German was quick to take advantage with brilliant net skills, nailing high backhand volleys as well as delicate crosscourt angles. When Rybakina did manage to get on the front foot, Maria still found a way to weave her web in defense, particularly with her touch on the lob.

“The grass fits for me perfectly, because it takes the slice really good and it keeps it low,” Maria told press afterward. “This is the hard part for players, because nobody plays like me.”

Maria also repeatedly outfoxed Rybakina by making counterintuitive shot choices that turned out to be strokes of genius. Up 4-3 in the second set, she had to hare across the court to track down a volley — but Rybakina was already moving to cover the open space down the line. Instead, Maria managed to caress the ball crosscourt, back to where Rybakina had been a second previously, to wrong-foot her opponent.

However, in important moments Maria was able to go back to basics. She saved 10 out of 12 break points against her, frequently with service winners or aces. She tallied nine of the latter, including two in the second-set tiebreak — just one behind Rybakina’s total of 10.

Rybakina threatened a comeback throughout the second set, going up 3-1 and then forcing a tiebreak from 5-3 down. But the stretches where she found her range were brief, and with the tiebreak balanced at 4-4 she committed a crucial double fault.

Keys’ insights into marital harmony: After a hard-fought, high-quality win that came down to a single break of serve in the third set, Keys was full of praise for Shnaider. But the on-court interviewer was also interested in her tactical approach — particularly when it came to following husband and coach Bjorn Fratangelo’s instructions. On a number of occasions, Fratangelo advised a serve down the T — but Keys responded by going wide.

“Sometimes I don’t like where he’s telling me to serve,” Keys said. “So I just take it as an option, and I choose to do something else. That’s why we work so well together!”

Keys also drew laughs from a slightly astonished crowd, on one of the hottest days of the British year so far — reaching a high of a balmy 27°C — by describing the weather as “a nice winter day,” from her Floridian perspective.