Born in Bosnia, Andrea Petkovic immigrated to Germany with her parents when she was just 6 months old. Her father, a former Yugoslav tennis player, coached her at a club in Darmstadt but insisted that she finish high school before pursuing tennis professionally. That patience has paid off. So far in 2011, Petkovic, 23, has reached the quarterfinals of the Australian and the French and achieved a career-high ranking of No. 11 in the world. She has also clocked more than 500,000 views on her popular YouTube channel, on which she raps, instructs viewers on her world-famous “Petko dance,” plays the drums and guitar and occasionally mockingly calls herself “not only the most famous person in Germany but the most famous person in the entire world.” She says keeping things light helps her on the court. “Tennis is my absolute priority, and I’ll do anything to improve. But improving also involves turning tennis off and relaxing and recharging your batteries,” she says. “Music is one way to do it. I’m really not good at the instruments I play, but I forget everything around me.”
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Rebel, survivor, pinup, sweetheart, pit bull, rock chick, ice queen: female tennis players sure seem to get labeled a lot. And while that kind of media sizzle makes tournaments like Wimbledon a hot ticket, it doesn't begin to sum up the resilience and power of the sport's biggest stars. Find out what drives the greatest players of the past 40 years, from Billie Jean King to Li Na
Andrea Petkovic
Full List
Wimbledon Women
- Li Na
- Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
- Andrea Petkovic
- Petra Kvitova
- Caroline Wozniacki
- Yanina Wickmayer
- Victoria Azarenka
- Agnieszka Radwanska
- Bethanie Mattek-Sands
- Ana Ivanovic
- Samantha Stosur
- Vera Zvonareva
- Maria Sharapova
- Kim Clijsters
- Justine Henin
- Serena Williams
- Venus Williams
- Martina Hingis
- Monica Seles
- Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario
- Gabriela Sabatini
- Steffi Graf
- Tracy Austin
- Martina Navratilova
- Chris Evert
- Evonne Goolagong
- Virginia Wade
- Rosie Casals
- Margaret Court
- Billie Jean King