Claudia Kohde-Kilsch

Playing career

Claudia Kohde was born in Saarbrücken on 11 December 1963 and later added Kilsch, the name of her adoptive father, Jürgen Kilsch. She started playing at five, turned professional on 1 January 1980 and in 1981, aged 17, beat Martina Navratilova in Oakland. She won the German Open in 1984 and in 1985 reached the semi-finals of the Australian and French Opens and No. 4 in the world. She won eight singles titles.

Her best results came in doubles with the Czech Helena Suková: the US Open in 1985 and Wimbledon in 1987, among 25 doubles titles in her career. She reached No. 3 in the doubles rankings in 1987, was in the West German team that won the Federation Cup that year, and won a bronze medal in the doubles at the 1988 Seoul Olympics with Steffi Graf.

After tennis she trained as a journalist and in 2017 became a national coach for players with disabilities at the German tennis federation. In 1999 it emerged that her stepfather had embezzled much of her fortune; she pursued him in court until his death in 2004 and filed for bankruptcy in 2011. She has also worked in politics in Saarland, for Die Linke and later the SPD, and sat on Saarbrücken city council from 2014 to 2019.

On grass

Every grass title: 3

Show every title, tournament by tournament

Wimbledon
1987	Women's doubles	with Helena Suková
New South Wales Championships
1984	Women's doubles New South Wales Open	with Helena Suková
Birmingham
1988	Women's singles

Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. † single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions