Andrea Petkovic: Helmut Schmidt

The stars of our sport shared stories about their heroes, both in life and on the court, and how these idols shaped who they are today. For more "My Hero" submissions, click here.

For me it was always Helmut Schmidt, our former chancellor in Germany. I always felt, especially as a girl, the need to be liked. And I hate that! I just want to be myself. Now it's much better, but when I was a teenager, the moment I feel like someone didn't like me I would immediately do everything to be liked again.

I loved that he didn't care about that at all. He had his opinion and he would go for it. He was authentic, and he would just do his thing. He was rude, and he was smoking cigarettes where he shouldn't be smoking. I just thought that was so cool, that somebody was himself and didn't care what other people thought. He gained respect by it. I loved that. It showed in the long run; now he's an elder statesman, and what he says everyone thinks we should do. It's great that in the long term, it paid off that he was himself.

Schmidt photo from Wikimedia Commons