Porsche Tennis Grand Prix: Myth of the winning car
"Stuttgart? Is that the tournament where the winner gets a Porsche ..?" That's exactly how it is: the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix has been the tennis event with the most attractive prize for more than 40 years - and Tracy Austin, Martina Navratilova or Maria Sharapova have brought it to an impressive collection.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Apr 20, 2020, 01:59 pm
The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 2020 is unfortunately canceled due to the corona pandemic. In a tennisnet special, we look back in exclusive interviews and detailed articles on the most beautiful stories of the past years.
Anke Huber had a little problem after her victory in Filderstadt. In the 1991 final, the girl from Karlsruhe had just struck Martina Navratilova completely unexpectedly and thus secured a Porsche 968 Cabriolet.
The problem? Huber was only 16 - and a driver's license was still a dream of the future.
She was not the first and only one: Tracy Austin, premier winner in 1978 and ultimately four-time winner of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, won at the age of 15, of course without a driver's license. And Martina Hingis, once a Swiss child prodigy, won her first of four titles at the age of 17.
Martina Navratilova with fleet
A brand new Porsche instead of nasty mammon: It has always been the great attraction of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. Record winner Martina Navratilova had an entire fleet at home at the end of her career. Although she already had a driver's license when she won her first race, the transport of her winning cars was always a bit complicated, after all, the Porsche first had to make it across the pond to the USA ...
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In 1986 Navratilova even got two cars: one gave her friend Judy Nelson for her 30th birthday, which she celebrated during the week; Navratilova regularly won another in the final. Overall, the "Grande Dame des Tennis" has six victories in Filderstadt. (Tournament founder Dieter Fischer gave her a farewell Porsche at the end of her career in 1994.)
None of the winners seemed to have problems with possible parking spaces. Maria Sharapova, winner in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and long since a Porsche brand ambassador, got to the point after her second victory when she was asked whether it would be tight in her garage: "There is always room for a Porsche!"
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The German winners after Huber, i.e. Julia Görges (2011) and Angelique Kerber (2015, 2016) - now also brand ambassadors - are now happy Porsche drivers, as is Laura Siegemund (2017) .
"Exchange Boxster for Carrera!"
It is already known that the players in Filderstadt and Stuttgart read every wish from their lips - keyword “bedtime treat”, which Dieter Fischer always put in the hotel room. But also as far as the choice of car is concerned: When Martina Hingis won a Porsche Boxster S in 2000, she came around the corner with an unusual request: "I would like to exchange the Boxster for a Carrera."
How did you get to award a car as a victory bonus? Dieter Fischer, who had the actual idea of a tournament in the fields of Filderstadt at the end of the 1970s, initially came to nothing with many sponsors. The world's tennis elite in tranquil Filderstadt? "Crazy," was the general verdict. Only Lars Schmidt, then head of sales at Porsche AG, liked the idea. "I owe the tournament to him," says Fischer.
The winners always thankfully accepted the Porsche. Racing driver Hans-Joachim "Strietzel" Stuck even once had the honor of driving the prize onto the pitch, not without warning from the winner. "Just watch my car," Pam Shriver threatened him in 1986.
In the meantime, this pleasure is mostly up to the players themselves - emphasis on "mostly": Karolina Pliskova, winner in 2018 and at least 26 years old, had also (still) converted her matchball without a license. A problem? No. Pliskova was chauffeured to the square by someone who knew the winning car better than anyone else: the CEO of Porsche AG, Oliver Blume.
Gallery of the Porsche winners: From Austin to Siegemund
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More articles:
Porsche Tennis Grand Prix - the 1970s: Tracy Austin dominates at will
