The very thought of getting two kids on a plane every other week might sound like a nightmare to many new parents, but Tatjana Maria is relishing her globe-trotting life as a professional tennis player and mum of two.

The 34-year-old German travels with her coach and husband Charles-Edouard Maria and their two daughters Charlotte, 9, and 14-month-old Cecilia, but juggling family life alongside her professional aspirations has proven both rewarding and motivating for the former world No. 46 – particularly given her eldest’s keen interest in the sport.

“I love to be on the professional tennis tour now I have a family,” she said. “I have two kids and we’re travelling all around the world, we’re always together.

“My eight-year-old daughter plays tennis too and she [watches] all the matches. She’s always here [at the courts].”

Maria, who has amassed 37 titles (18 in singles and 19 in doubles) during her professional career to date and competed in 13 Billie Jean King Cup ties for her country, took a break from the sport to have her first child while aged 25 and returned with renewed determination and a single-handed backhand, having switched from her double-hander during maternity leave.

She went on to crack the Top 50 for the first time four years later, in 2017, before announcing her second pregnancy in April 2020.

❤️Welcome to our 2nd princess.... Cecilia! Born on April 2nd!❤️@WTA pic.twitter.com/8p5l4xo2ht

— Tatjana Maria (@Maria_Tatjana) April 3, 2021

Maria’s latest comeback has already seen her claim a title on the ITF World Tennis Tour at W60 Rome this February - her biggest hard court title in five years – as well as her first WTA title on clay in Bogota in April.

Those achievements, Maria says, have been inspired by the presence of her kids and the harmonious family environment they have achieved while travelling the tour.

“Our kids are really easy kids, we’re really lucky,” she said. “My husband, he’s our coach - he’s my coach and he’s the coach of our daughter – and he’s doing a great job too. Without him it would not be possible.

“We [sometimes] have the Grandma also with us to help us, but I love it. I love to be together, I love to travel together and I love to take care of my kids.”

Given that her parents have such a tennis pedigree (Maria's husband Charles-Edouard was also a former player), it was perhaps inevitable that young Charlotte would follow in their footsteps while living life on the tour.

“She loves to play tennis and she loves to travel, to be every week in different tournaments, to meet different kids. Now she found her group of kids again and she practices every day,” said Maria of her eldest child.

“She loves it. For me, as a mum playing tennis, it makes me proud. I try to keep going and to show her the way, and how it all works.”

2nd WTA TITLE!🏆🏆 No words for this week! 🥳🤩 Thank you everyone for all your support and your love! pic.twitter.com/AG2kLU787e

— Tatjana Maria (@Maria_Tatjana) April 15, 2022

Maria appreciates that her daughter's tennis journey is already uniquely different to her own, with her exposure to the world's best tennis talent, facilities and coaching. It's a world apart from her own early forays into tennis, which began with a casual interest alongside other sports and developed into steady progression through the junior game and along the ITF's player pathway.

"My journey was pretty much like a normal girl," reflected Maria. "For my parents it was super important that I grew up like a normal girl. I went to school, I had my practice in the afternoon, I played a lot of sports, I played handball on the side for many, many years, I did skiing, I did a lot of things.

"I played a lot of juniors after that. We saw I played good [at that level] and I’m on top of the juniors already so I kept going..."

Central to that progression were the opportunities on the ITF World Tennis Tour, which Maria took with both hands. 

She won her first two tournaments as an 18-year-old at W25 level back in 2006, and elevated that progress with victory at W100 Bratislava the following year. Maria has gone on to win four further ITF W100 singles tournaments and, more recently, two WTA titles, and believes those ITF W100 events are crucial to the development of young, emerging tennis players on the world stage.

"I think the women's 100 tournaments are super important for everybody, but especially for the younger ones who want to come up," she said. "To have bigger [tournaments] at the ITF [level] is really important for everybody. 

"In all my career, when I played good in a W100 or when I won a W100, I raised my level so much and I was [able] to play the WTAs after."

It may not be long before there's a new Maria traversing the same path in to professional tennis but, before all that, it feels like there's plenty more to come from the family's eminent tennis star.