30 Amazing Things We Bet You Didn't Know About Angelique Kerber

26 February 2019, 8:10 pm EST By Ruby Karnick

Angelique Kerber, a former world No. 1 and winner of three Grand Slam tournaments, is immensely popular for her counter-punching all-court game. As of February 2019, she is ranked world No. 6. Here are some very interesting facts about the German professional tennis player:

She was born on January 18, 1988, in Bremen, West Germany, to polish parents Beata and Slawomir Kerber. Shehas a sister, Jessica, and holds dual,German and Polish citizenship.
Kerber who is right-handed but plays left-handed started to play tennis at the age of three. She is an out-and-out defender, and relies primarily on her speed, anticipation and footwork to win matches.
She competed in the junior circuit between 2002 to January 2004 and reached the finals of ITF junior tournaments at 26th German Junior Open, the Hong Kong Open Junior Championship, BMW Junior Open, and Victorian Junior Championship apart from winning two doubles tournament at Nuremberg Jrs., Germany and TraralgonJrs., Australia.
Kerber turned professional at the age of 15 and reached her first tournament final at the ITF Circuit in Warsaw, in February 2004. She went on to win her first title at the ITF Indoor tournament in Opole, Poland in November, defeating Elena Tatarkova of Ukraine, 6-2, 6-2.
Kerber made her WTA tour debut at the Gaz de France Stars in November 2006, where she reached the second rounds before losing to Ana Ivanovic, 3-6, 7-6, 3-6. She followed that up with a qualification to the main draw of the 2007 French Open, where she was defeated by Elena Dementieva in the opening round.
In the year 2007, she won three ITF Circuit titles in Canada, Spain and Turkey out of six finals she reached. She also made it to her first WTA main draw quarterfinal at the Ordina Open in June 2007, before bowing out to Anna Chakvetadze, 2-6, 2-6.
Kerberstarted the year ranked 106 and with 55% win in 19 tournaments she ended the year 2010, ranked creditable 47. She reached the finals of WTA Copa Sony Ericsson Colsanitas and third round of Australian and Wimbledon tournaments.
She made it to her first Grand Slam semi-finals at the 2011 United States Open, where she defeated 12th seed Agnieszka Radwanska and 26th seed Flavia Pennetta before losing to eventual champion Samantha Stosur. She ended the year with career high ranking of 32.
In February 2012, she won her first WTA title at the Open GDF Suez, France. She defeated Maria Sharapova and Marion Bartoli, the tournament number 1 & 2 seeds to the title.
On April 15, 2012, Kerber, added her second title of the year and third of her career when she won the e-Boks Danish Open in Copenhagen, defeating Caroline Wozniacki, 6-4, 6-4

Kerber enjoyed stellar grass court season in 2012 when reached the finals of Eastbourne International, a premier grass court tournament and reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon Championships.
In the 2012 United States Open series she reached the third round of Roger Cup and the finals of Western & Southern Open where she defeated Serena Williams and Petra Kvitova before falling to Li Na, in three sets. In the process she snapped 19 match winning spree of Serena Williams.
After her tough training she goes for a walk, shopping, dance or sleeps to recuperate. Besides surfing and cycling she loves car driving and has even tried herself at a neat parking competition.
In 2013, Kerber competed in 22 tournaments winning one title at the Genetali Ladies Linz and reached two other finals in Monterrey Open, Mexico and Pan Pacific Open, Japan. She won the G.L. Linz tournament defeating Ana Ivanovic in the finals and qualified for the year end WTA Championships.
She started the year 2014 in a positive note by reaching the quarterfinals of Brisbane International before reaching her first final of the season at Sydney International, where she lost to Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria, 4-6, 4-6.
Kerber went on to reach three more finals in the 2014 season but the title eluded her. She reached the finals of Qatar Open, Eastbourne International, U.K and Bank of the West Classic, U.S. She ended the year ranked 10th with 66% win.
In April 2015, she claimed her fourth WTA title and her first since October 2013, when she won the Family Circle Cup, United States, defeating Madison Keys, by two sets to one. This was also her first title on clay.
Her sixth career title in Birmingham Classic, United Kingdom, in June 2015, was also her first on grass. She overcame Karolina Pliskova in a tight three setter. This marked the first time Kerber has won more than two titles in a season.
As a seventh seed at the 2016 Australian Open, she reached her maiden Grand Slam finals where she defeated the defending champion and then World No.1 Serena Williams, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4. She is the first German since Graf who won it in 1994 and the win took her World Ranking No. 2.
At the Olympic Games in Rio, she was the seeded second and true to her billing she reached the finals only to lose to Monica Puig of Puerto Rico to claim the Silver medal.

Kerber won her second Grand Slam title when she won the 2016 United States Open Singles title defeating Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic in the final, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. She became the first German to win the U.S Open since Steffi Graf in 1996.
She was crowned World Ranked No.1 from week starting September 12, 2016, to become only the second German women to achieve the historic milestone and first since Graf and 12th player in WTA history. She dethroned Serena Williams, whose sixth stint at No.1 began more than three years ago.
Kerber was voted the ‘2016 WTA Player of the Year,’ after enjoying her best season to date. She was also nominated for the ‘Laureus World Sports Award for Sportswoman of the Year 2016.’
She was World’s second highest-paid female athlete by Forbes in 2017 and was also named among Europe’s 30 Under 30 by the magazine in the same year.
After slipping out of top 20 ranking, her career revived in 2018 with a victory in the season opener at Sydney International apart from reaching the semi-final of Australian Open and Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship. With this performance Kerber returned to the top 10 in ranking.
Kerber was the 11 seed at the 2018 Wimbledon. She progressed with victory over Vera Zvonareva, Claire Liu, Naomi Osaka, Belinda Bencic, Daria Kasatkina and Jelena Ostapenko to reach her second Wimbledon finals. In the finals she defeated Serena Williams 6-3, 6-3, and improved her ranking to No. 4.
Kerber likes to watch figure skating, Soccer and Formula 1 competitions. Her favorite club is Bayern Munich, Julia Roberts is her favorite actress, Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist is her favorite book, and Helene Fisher is her favorite singer.
She is private in nature and doesn’t have a spouse though she was linked to her coach Torben Beltz. They were professionally linked for about 12 years before she switched to Wim Fissette since 2017.
She has endorsement deals with Adidas, Beats, Delta Airlines, IBM, SAP, Generali Group and in addition to being band ambassador of Porche. She owns several models of the car gifted by the company.
She has been named as a UNICF’s children’s charity ambassador. She is committed to rights of disadvantage children, who have to flee from war, don’t have enough food or cannot go to school. According to her, this is another motivation for her.