Former Pro Andrea Petkovic Makes Her Stance Clear on the WTA’s Big 4 Prompting Calls for Increased Competition Among Elite Players

Former WTA player Andrea Petkovic has great insight to offer about tennis’s rising WTA stars. Four female tennis players have been making it to the headlines for their brilliant display to become the next elites of the sport. These players are the world’s number-one, Iga Swiatek, Australian Open 2023 winner Aryna Sabalenka, reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff and Miami Open 2024’s finalist Elena Rybakina.

Petkovic delved deeper to explain how these four WTA personalities brought more excitement to the sport because of their best-of-three matches. Unlike ATP stars, she delved deeper into why she would prefer watching these four more than star ATP players.

Andrea Petkovic thinks the Big 4 will “dominate” professional tennis in the future

In a recent interview with Eurosport, former WTA Pro Andrea Petkovic expressed her desire to see Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka, and Elena Rybakina securing more victories in professional tennis and bagging more titles in the coming future. She revealed the reason for her enthusiasm towards women’s tennis. In Petkovic’s words- “I think so. We have more surprises in women’s tennis than in men’s tennis thanks to the best-of-three matches, even at Grand Slam events, where the favourite is more likely to get out of a tricky situation in the best-of-five mode.” 

Petkovic wished to see these four tennis players compete with each other often and surprise the fraternity with more exciting matches. She further said- “It would be desirable for these four to play each other more often. This is the case at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, but overall it still happens too rarely. If that changes, these players will become stars who shine beyond the world of tennis – and we will have rivalries like the one between Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz and Sinner.”

However, this is not the first time Petkovic dropped insights about famous WTA players. Her interview with Sabalenka after the latter’s US Open loss last year gained significant publicity for bringing out the Serbian WTA star’s perspective.

Andrea Petkovic’s interview with Aryna Sabalenka revealed the Belarusian’s way to win AO this year

Petkovic previously spoke about how delighted she was interviewing Aryna Sabalenka, the finalist of the US Open tournament last season. Sabalenka was defeated by Coco Gauff and Petkovic had a shocking comment on that. She said- ” I honestly think that loss against Coco Gauff in the US Open final was the best thing that happened to her [Sabalenka] because I had the chance to interview her right after she won the Australian Open.”

Petkovic further touched upon Sabalenka’s response,- “She said, ‘You know what, when I lost to Coco, I realized I need a B plan. I was hitting the ball well. I was playing well, but Coco was getting everything back and I just at one point didn’t know how to win a point anymore or how to make a winner. So, I was working on my net game. I was working on more variety’.”

Andrea Petkovic’s comment on tennis’ rising WTA stars expresses this former tennis player’s expectations from the new generation. Can WTA’s big four create as much excitement as the ATP’s top brass? Let us know in the comments section below,

Read more: Humbling at the Hands of Coco Gauff Explained as a Blessing in Disguise for Aryna Sabalenka by Former German Pro