Friends of the Brand

For Porsche in their home markets

A close bond with Porsche – as Friends of the Brand, Iga Swiatek, Maria Sakkari, Anett Kontaveit, Karolina Muchova and Jule Niemeier represent the sports car manufacturer primarily in their home countries.

Iga Swiatek

Her life motto is stuck on the door inside her Porsche Panamera: “You don’t get up in the morning to be average”. Aged only 22, Iga Swiatek is already one of her sport’s greats. It does not remain without consequences for her daily life, especially back home in Poland. “People recognise me almost everywhere,” she says, “It’s difficult for me to live in peace and quiet.”

The popularity occasionally has its good sides. 15,000 spectators turned up at the “Iga Swiatek and Friends for Ukraine” event in Kraków. Over a million people watched the TV broadcast of a mixed doubles which saw the former world class player Agnieszka Radwanska pick up a racket again. In the end, the event raised over half a million euro for Ukrainian children and adolescents affected by the war.

Iga Swiatek was born in the Polish capital Warsaw on 31 May 2001. In 2016, she won her first ever ITF tournament in Sweden. In 2020, she broke into the world Top 20 for the first time. In the same year, she won the French Open to become the first Polish Grand Slam winner. She then added further Grand Slam titles in Roland Garros (2022 and 2023) as well as at the US Open (2022). At the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, she crowned herself the tennis queen of Stuttgart in 2022 and 2023 and was able to take a sports car from Zuffenhausen back home with her each time. On 4 April 2022, the Pole, who prefers to listen to hard rock by AC/DC before her matches, became the world No. 1. She won the 2023 WTA Finals as well as the 2024 WTA 1000 events in Doha and Indian Wells.

Despite all her success, it is not always easy for her to grasp that she has become the world’s top player. “Sometimes,” she says, “my team has to remind me what I’ve achieved and that I can feel proud.”

Maria Sakkari

Maria Sakkari’s path to becoming a professional tennis player was mapped out early on. Her mother Angeliki Kanellopoulou played successfully on the WTA Tour and managed to break into the Top 50. She took the little Maria out onto a tennis court, discovered her talent and then supported her when, aged 18, she moved to Barcelona as Spain offered better practice facilities. A good decision as she qualified for her first Grand Slam in her rookie year at the 2014 US Open.

Born in Athens on 25 July 1995, Maria Sakkari then put Greece on the tennis map in the years afterwards. In 2021, she managed to become the first Greek to break into the Top 10, thanks in no small measure to her reaching the semifinals at the French and US Opens. As a result, she qualified, again as the first Greek, for the WTA Finals in Guadalajara, Mexico where she went on to reach the last four at the season’s highlight.

In view of her successes, it is a little astonishing that she has only won two career WTA titles – in Rabat in 2019 and in Guadalajara in 2023 – to her name. Nevertheless, the right-hander who views Serena Williams as her role model and the serve as her biggest strength, is a permanent fixture in the Top 10. Her highest career ranking came on 21 March 2022 when she was listed as the world No. 3.

Anett Kontaveit

Anett Kontaveit has a special bond with the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. In 2017, she reached the quarterfinals after her first ever win against a Top 10 player. In 2018, she was in the last four and then made it to the final in 2019. The excitement in her home country was so big that a Radio Estonia reporter spontaneously boarded a plane and jetted to Stuttgart on Sunday morning to broadcast her countrywoman’s match live. For her, the tournament in the Porsche Arena “was something quite special” before continuing, “I look forward every year to playing in front of this crowd.”

It unfortunately is something that will not happen again. Aged only 27, she announced her retirement at Wimbledon in July 2023 due to persistent back problems The WTA Tour has lost one of its most popular players.

Right away as a teenager, Anett Kontaveit, who was born in Estonia’s capital city Tallinn on 24 December 1995, was one of the best players in her age group. In 2011, she won the Orange Bowl, the world’s most prestigious junior tournament in Florida. In 2012, she reached the semifinals of the juniors at the French Open and Wimbledon and was the US Open runner-up. She made her main draw debut at a WTA tournament in Miami in 2013 and was given a Wimbledon wild card as the most successful grass court player. It was a dream come true.

She broke into the Top 100 in when reaching the last 16 at the US Open. In 2017, she won her first WTA title in s‘-Herzogenbosch and was ranked in the Top 50. She became the world No. 2 in June 2022. She is a winner of six career WTA titles.

Karolina Muchova

Karolina Muchova was really looking forward to her second appearance at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. When competing for the first time in the Porsche Arena, there were no spectators in the venue due to the pandemic. This time around, she wanted to enjoy the “tournament’s special atmosphere in a full indoor arena with all the fans” as she said at the turn of the year. And then went on to say, “I can drive my own car to Stuttgart. It’s also something I’m looking forward to.”

Everything has however turned out quite differently. Due to a hand injury, she missed not only the 2023 WTA Finals but also the start of the 2024 season at the Australian Open. Heavy-hearted, she has also had to pull out of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.

As her father was a professional footballer, Karolina Muchova has basically had a love of sport right from birth. Born in Olmitz, the Czech Republic on 21 August 1996, she stood on a tennis court for the first time at the age of 7. After progressing through qualifying, she reached the main draw of a WTA tournament for the first time Seoul in 2017. Two years later, she celebrated her one and only WTA title to date in South Korea’s capital.

After reaching the quarterfinals of the Doha tournament in 2019, she duly broke into the Top 100. In the same year, she made her first appearance in a WTA final in Prague, the city in which she has been living and practicing for years. She made her debut for the Czech Fed Cup team in the same year. She also hit the headlines at Wimbledon, when beating her countrywoman Karolina Pliskova in the quarterfinals. It was her maiden win against a Top 10 player – the third set tie-break ended 13-11.

In the 2021 season, she attracted people’s attention not only by getting to the Australian Open semifinals and her second Wimbledon quarterfinals but also through her wins against Ashleigh Barty in Melbourne and against Naomi Osaka in Madrid. Winning against both the world No. 1 and No. 2 in a single season is something only Paula Badosa has managed.

Her ultimate breakthrough at the top came in 2023. The righthander was the runner-up at the French Open and at the WTA 1000 event in Cincinnati – and afterwards found herself ranked in the Top 10. Karolina Muchova was in top form. The world No. 8’s rise up the rankings was then stopped by a wrist injury. It meant she missed out on the WTA Finals for which she had qualified for the first time, the Australian Open which she particularly likes, and now also the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix which she had really looked forward to.

Jule Niemeier

There are moments in the life of a sportswoman that are for eternity. Jule Niemeier enjoyed such a moment on 3 July 2022.

It is a Sunday in Wimbledon. The middle Sunday is normally a day-off at the world’s biggest tournament. However, the 135th edition of the Championships breaks with tradition and Jule Niemeier, who at the time belonged to the Porsche Talent Team, takes her chance. She is playing on Centre Court in front of a capacity 15,000-crowd against Heather Watson, the experienced local hero, and clinches her place in the quarterfinals after only 77 minutes. Watching the then 22-year-old German’s legendary performance were also numerous former Wimbledon champions on the occasion of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the world-famous tournament on London’s Church Road.

Jule Niemeier has been travelling the world as a tennis pro since 2016. She claimed her first ITF Tour title in Kaltenkirchen in 2018. It was the year in which she rose an incredible 500 places up the world rankings. She reached her first WTA main draw in Nuremberg in 2019 via qualifying and then repeated the feat a year later in Strasbourg where she went all the way to the semifinals.

Everything continued at the same pace for Jule Niemeier, an avid Borussia Dortmund fan who played football herself for two years as a child. Before enjoying the biggest career success at Wimbledon in 2022, she celebrated her first WTA title in Makarska, Croatia and broke into the Top 100. She also went all the way to the last 16 at the US Open.

The expectations bound up with the impressive performances were then difficult to fulfil. She started the 2023 season as the world No. 61 but dropped to No. 162. A quarterfinal at the Hamburg European Open was her only success. When she felt nothing was working anymore and could not perform at a level she was capable of, she pressed the emergency button. She pulled out of a few tournaments she had been scheduled to play at the end of the year and spent several weeks in her new home in Regensburg.

It was not a decision she has regretted. “I needed the time to recuperate and work on my game,” she said in an interview. There were no problems with self-doubt: “I was able to develop as a person. If after such a year you can come to the right conclusions, then it can be quite valuable.” The aim she has set herself for 2024 is to continue to develop and to get the best out of every situation. She knows: “Should I experience such a season again, then I definitely know how to deal with it.”

She however does not want to put herself into such a situation.

Maria Sakkari

Maria Sakkari’s path to becoming a professional tennis player was mapped out early on. Her mother Angeliki Kanellopoulou played successfully on the WTA Tour and managed to break into the Top 50. She took the little Maria out onto a tennis court, discovered her talent and then supported her when, aged 18, she moved to Barcelona as Spain offered better practice facilities. A good decision as she qualified for her first Grand Slam in her rookie year at the 2014 US Open.

Born in Athens on 25 July 1995, Maria Sakkari then put Greece on the tennis map in the years afterwards. In 2021, she managed to become the first Greek to break into the Top 10, thanks in no small measure to her reaching the semifinals at the French and US Opens. As a result, she qualified, again as the first Greek, for the WTA Finals in Guadalajara, Mexico where she went on to reach the last four at the season’s highlight. The trademarks of the co-operation partner of Porsche Greece are her excellent fitness and her powerful game.

In view of her successes, it is a little astonishing that she has only won two career WTA titles – in Rabat in 2019 and at the Guadalajara Masters in 2023 – to her name. Nevertheless, the right-hander who views Serena Williams as her role model and the serve as her biggest strength, is a permanent fixture in the Top 10. Her highest career ranking came on 21 March 2022 when she was listed as the world No. 3.