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WNBA star Candace Parker recently announced that she is expecting a child with her partner Anna Petrakova. She also revealed that the couple secretly tied the knot in 2019 and have been married for two years.
The Chicago Sky captain took to Instagram to mark her second anniversary with Petrakova and shared a series of photos from their intimate wedding ceremony. In the throwback pictures, the couple is seen dressed in white, surrounded by friends and family on their wedding night.
Meanwhile, other photos showed Anna Petrakova cradling her baby bump and also sharing a frame with Candace Parker’s 12-year-old daughter, Lailaa. In her Instagram post, the basketball player said that she and Petrakova always dreamt of growing their family and shared that Lailaa was excited to be an elder sister:
“We’ve always dreamed of growing our family…. it’s surreal that we now have a baby on the way! Lailaa is pumped to be a big sister!”
She also thanked her wife for treating Lailaa as her own child:
“Thank you for always loving Lailaa as your own, being my calm, my support, my voice of reason, my laughs, my cuddles, my dance in the rain, my happy, my home.”
Candace Parker shares Lailaa with her former husband, Shelden Williams. The couple married in 2008 and welcomed their daughter in 2009. However, they filed for divorce in 2016, citing “irreconcilable differences,” and legally finalized their separation in 2018.
Meet Candace Parker’s wife, Anna Petrakova
Anna Petrakova is a 37-year-old professional basketball player from Russia. She was a member of the Russia women’s national basketball team that held fourth place at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Petrakova was the winner of the EuroCup Women's championship in 2011–12, along with Dynamo Kursk. She also won EuroLeague Women in 2012–13 and the 2013 FIBA Europe SuperCup Women with UMMC Ekaterinburg.
On December 14, 2021, it was revealed that Petrakova is married to WNBA player Candace Parker and is pregnant with the couple’s first child together. The duo tied the knot in 2019, a year after Parker’s divorce from ex-husband, Shelden Williams.
