A biography for Maria Sakkarihasn’t been written yet.
“I had to work and sacrifice a lot from my life.”
“I'm just enjoying my time being one of the best players in the world.”
“Coming from Greece, we have many beaches.”
“I think if you were to ask a lot of players on the tour if they would take my semifinal record, they would say yes, because I'm not losing first round. I'm losing in semifinal.”
“Obviously, you have the string and tension together to make it a different racket than another player, but I would say the flexibility, the control of the racket are the things I look for.”
“It's never easy to play someone you have never played before, never seen before on the tour.”
“It's heartbreaking to see plastic bags and bottles in the sea.”
“I actually like to spend time in the gym. I'm really enjoying it. I guess it's good for my tennis, as well.”
“Grass obviously plays different to clay and hard court. But there's not a top player that cannot play on grass.”
“When you are young... you're fearless - you don't think and you just play.”
“I like kids, so it's nice to play with them. It feels good.”
“More than anything we're human.”
“Serena is just a legend that you don't have to say much about.”
“I travel with my own espresso machine. It's not a portable device - it weighs 2 kilos, but it's perfectly fine to travel with me so I can have my coffee every day.”
“People don't realise how big it is for someone who at the age of 26 - not the age of 20 - cracks into the Top 10. When no one believed I could do it, myself and the people around me really believed in me.”
“It's just now I think tennis has changed. There are so many girls serving well.”
“She helped me out a few times when I didn't have a coach. But when I was little, I was practicing with my grandfather up until I was 12 or 13 because he was my mom's coach. And then just worked with some other people, but my mom was there with me. She called herself the emergency coach.”
“It's just that in everything, not only tennis, things are changing, things are evolving, like technology.”
“It is good to have a racket that you play well with, but for myself I also want to have a racket that looks nice.”
“I just wanted to be more brave, and that's what I did.”