Tatjana Maria entered the court for her first match at Queen’s Club in a crisis. It had been two months since the 37-year-old had last won a match and in that time she had registered nine consecutive defeats. Not even a return to her favourite surface, grass, shifted her downward trajectory: her previous match, at the Birmingham Open, ended in a straight-sets defeat by an opponent ranked No 229.
Just over a week later, Maria stands as the first women’s champion at Queen’s Club for 52 years at the end of an extraordinary giantkilling run as she bamboozled Amanda Anisimova, the 8th seed and world No 15, 6-3, 6-4 to win the biggest title of her enduring career.
