Maria: ‘You can be different, and still be at the top of tennis' | ITF
Article 08 Mar 2023

Maria: ‘You can be different, and still be at the top of tennis'

Interview: Jamie Renton

08 Mar 2023

In a week where the ITF renewed its rallying cry for male allies to advocate for gender equality in tennis, ITFTennis.com spoke to one man who knows all about the strength and talents of women and girls in the sport.

Charles-Edouard Maria, 48, is the coach – and husband – of Germany’s Tatjana Maria, who inspired the watching world last July when she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon at the age of 34, little more than a year after giving birth to her second child.

Here, the former ATP pro turned coach gives an insight into coaching his wife and nine-year-old daughter, embracing unique qualities in players, and why he treats world No. 70 Tatjana and their eldest child Charlotte as equals on the court.


How did you get into coaching?

I stopped playing when I was around 28 (20 years ago) while I was about 400 in the world. Right away I got a proposition from a really good player who was top 50 in the world to start to coach, be a hitting partner, and to travel. I did my coaching qualifications on tour, and then I moved to America in 2004, did my diploma, and started to coach over there. At the beginning I wasn’t sure I would stay in tennis, and I didn’t really want to coach, but it was a good opportunity to start right away with a top player.

You met Tatjana, your now wife, in 2012 and ultimately became her coach. She’s known for her unique way of playing, with a crafty slice on both flanks – did you ever try to change that?

I really want to leave her to play her own way. I think that is the most important thing when you are coaching – to not try to change your player. To know what they are inside themselves. It’s better to work in the direction that they love to play, how they grew up playing. These things are really important.

Tatjana had a special game. A lot of people wanted to change her playing style, with her slice and all this, but at the end, that’s her, that’s what she feels comfortable with. I really want her to improve in this style and develop some other things to have more options in her game. It worked well to change her backhand from two hands to one hand, because she had a problem with it, during her (first) pregnancy.

Why did that feel like the right time to do it?

She didn’t want to play anymore with a two-handed backhand. She was feeling so bad, she was not confident with it. I told her ‘if you want, I will tutor you on a one-handed backhand. I’m sure you will feel comfortable and you will feel free. And if you feel good after the birth we can go back on tour and we try it, and if you don’t feel good and you don’t want to, we’ll stop’. There was no pressure. We tried and it worked!

With a game like hers, are there any players she feels more comfortable against? Is taking on a power player any tougher for her, someone who could blow her off the court?

Nobody will really bother her, with her game. She can play against everybody. Even if she plays a girl who is really powerful, it will not change anything, because if she keeps the ball low it is not easy for the other girl to hit the ball so hard. She always has a plan B, or even a plan C. That’s something that’s she’s lucky with because a lot of girls don’t have this. If I told her now, ‘you cannot play one slice’, believe me she will still beat a lot of players. That’s what she has inside her too. She can play a lot of different types of tennis.

Tatjana was a breath of fresh air at 2022 Wimbledon, reaching her first Grand Slam semi-final barely a year after giving birth to your second child. How much of a shock was that?

It was not a big surprise, because I know what she is capable of. She had already won a WTA tournament (in Bogota in April 2022) and an ITF tournament (at W60 Rome in February). She always feels comfortable at Wimbledon. She won a WTA title on grass a few years ago. I knew she could do well on grass, and of course it’s amazing and fantastic that she did it at Wimbledon. We were playing match by match, we knew she could win every match, even when she was in the semi-finals [against Ons Jabeur], we knew that she could win. It was nice that everybody saw that you can have your game style and you can win. You don’t need to be like all these players that hit the ball like crazy. You can be different, and still be at the top of tennis.

Do others come to you as a coach, asking for help to give them those tools?

No, I just coach my wife and my [eldest] daughter Charlotte, who is nine. That’s enough! I will stay like that. I will help my daughter when Tatjana is done with playing.

Does Charlotte play in the same way as her mum?

No! She has her game, it’s a normal game. She likes to slice too, but she sees her mum so of course she will have a good slice, I guess! But she will play like she wants to play.

Do you treat Tatjana, 35, and Charlotte, 9, in a similar way when it comes to tennis and coaching?

Yeh, I love it. With my daughter I take the time to do the little things right. It was really good for Tatjana when she came back. She had to do all these little exercises, working in the little box to develop her hands and all these things. They practice a lot together. For me, I take both of them as equals. Tatjana when she’s on the court, after she has practiced, we’ll do some baskets, and with Charlotte, it’s the same. For Charlotte it’s nice because she feels exactly like her mum, and sometimes she even gives her some tips – move a little more, do this, do this… and Tatjana listens! It’s nice.

You spend your life on the road, on the tour. How easy is it to switch off, to draw the line? Do you take tennis home?

No, not at all. The most important thing for us is family. We talk about tennis when we’re on the court, before a match, when she has a match, but after we never talk about tennis outside. We do a lot of things - our daughter did one week of pony camp, she plays a lot of golf, we do a lot outside of tennis. It's good to do another sport. It’s good for your mind. With tennis parents on a court, they want too much at a lower age – when they’re 8, 9, 10 they’re still a kid.

It’s good to play, it’s good to practice, to do the correct things, but you need to have a life beside it. You don’t need to be hard with the kids, you don’t need to be aggressive with the kids, you know what I mean? If they really want to play, they will play. You do it, you tell them how to do it, play with them, you help them. That’s our point of view. If one day she doesn’t want to play, that’s okay. We will not decide for her.

Tatjana’s 35 now, but still competing at the top of the game. How much emphasis do you put on fitness off the court?

Tatjana will never go to the fitness room and do weights. That’s not our way to work. If you go on the court, you do exercise with the ball, play handball or soccer, for us it’s enough. For Tatjana, we know what she needs, but we never go in the gym and lift weights. But that’s just for her – I know some players need to do this. Or they have a different way to work.

Who do you admire in the coaching world?

Every coach will work differently. It depends on the player they work with. I never use another coach as an example. With Tatjana I have to know her better than everybody to see what works. I don’t use other coaches as an example.

But the way someone like Nadal is on the court, you know that what happens outside the court was well done, because he’s somebody that fights every point, that respects the game, that listens to the coach, that wants to improve every day. There’s no place for anything that is a bad use of time. It was the same with Roger, that’s why I guess they became the best. Somebody like Roger was really focused on his coaching, he wanted to improve, he listened a lot, he wanted to understand everything that was happening for his game and for himself.

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