This title has weight. After last year’s sensational year, when Barbora Krejčíková shocked all the fans and experts by winning the Grand Slam and shooting to the top, came a lingering injury and depression. Now the Czech tennis player has regained her form and after winning the trophy in Tallinn, she is feared again.
She played against the number one seed, the world number four and the home star, for whom the entire hall stood. Despite this, the tennis player from Ivančice had no trouble with Anett Kontaveitova at all and clearly beat her 6:2 and 6:3.
“I’m proud of myself that I saved my best performance for the final. I suspected that Anett would want to push me from the first ball, so I tried not to let her do that,” explained Krejčíková.
At the same time, the Estonian can do it indoors, she won 24 matches in a row, but she didn’t know how to deal with the Czech Republic at all.
“She is an unpleasant opponent, especially when she plays like this. She places the balls flawlessly, hits the corners and far to the line, you can’t make mistakes against such tennis and I was very far from winning,” Kontaveit said sadly in front of the Estonian media.
And the form of last year’s Roland Garros champion improved even as more and more difficult opponents came her way. She successively beat Australian Ajla Tomljanovic, Ukrainian Marta Kostuková, world number 15 Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Mai, 14th Swiss Belinda Bencic and finally number 4 Kontaveit.
“Every trophy is unique, but after how difficult this year was for me, the singles title has a huge weight for me,” recalled the twenty-six-year-old player about the difficult period.
She missed three months in the spring due to an elbow injury, then spent a long time finding a rhythm, playing as many tournaments as possible to pick up matches. But the doubles brought her first success anyway, when she completed a career grand slam at the US Open alongside Kateřina Siniaková.
“That’s why I tried to enjoy the final here in Tallinn. It took a lot of effort and energy to get to it,” she added.
Thanks to the fourth title of her career, she began to approach the top twenty of the ranking again, and she can use the form she gained from the hall at the domestic “little grand slam”.
That’s what you can call a star-studded tournament in Ostrava with a bit of exaggeration, where four players of the top ten, including world number one Iga Šwiateková, will meet. And in addition to Krejčíková, there will also be other Czech aces such as Karolína Plíšková, Petra Kvitová and Karolína Muchová.
Krejčík’s American Shelby Rogers, who won in Tallinn already in the first round, is waiting for the start.
