She was one of the greatest Czech tennis talents, but she ended her career at the age of 22. Daniela “Dája” Bedáňová was the guest of the next episode of the Bez frazí plus podcast, which is prepared in cooperation with the daily Aktuálně.cz. She talked about the tyranny she experienced under the coaching hand of her own father, and about the health problems she later went through and because of which she never had children.
The native of Ostrava had a really great footwork. At the turn of the millennium, the WTA declared her Rookie of the Year. And not to. She even played in the quarterfinals of the US Open in 2001 and made it as high as 16th in the rankings.
But then came the turning point. She began to have major health problems that forced her to end her career prematurely, already at the age of 22.
Years later, she admitted that her father, Jan Bedáň, who trained her and punished her physically and mentally, also had a lot to do with it.
“The first thing I remember is how I ran around the court so that he wouldn’t catch me. It may sound funny now, but for a child who doesn’t have that much strength, it was a heart rate of 200 and fear,” Bedáňová said in the Bez frazí podcast, which he will celebrate his 40th birthday next spring.
The former tennis talent came up with a harsh story only last year, i.e. almost four years after Bedána’s death. The memories stayed with her for a long time and she opened up completely to few people. She gave an even harsher statement afterwards. She admitted that her father’s abuse had reached such a point that she thought about suicide.
“You get slapped for nothing, definitely for nothing important, you lie in bed and your mind is racing that it will happen again tomorrow. So you ask yourself if it’s worth it. On the other hand, then I realized that it still doesn’t bother me I enjoy the court, especially the feeling when I win,” she described.
From a psychological point of view, he also knew very well what to say in case of success or failure, so that he would prick and roast his daughter.
“I pretended to sleep in the car”
“They were messages like ‘you’ll never be good anyway, you’ll never be able to do anything, you’ll end up somewhere in a factory’. He said that when I have children, I’ll understand that behavior, that otherwise they’ll grow up to be scumbags,” she explained.
She still remembers the moment when she achieved the greatest success in her career. She defeated Monika Selešová and advanced to the quarterfinals of the US Open.
“He shook my hand and said that it was a good coincidence, but that we’ll see in the next match if it really wasn’t a coincidence. You expect someone close to you to at least congratulate you, but he didn’t do that,” she recalled.
At the same time, Bedáň paid for an intelligent coach who led many Czech representatives in tennis. Among women, he helped, for example, the Plíšk sisters, among men he led Ivo Minář or Jan Hájek.
“He was a 24-hour teacher, he kept telling stories, how many times I had to pretend to be asleep in the car so I could breathe. When I asked him why he was nasty to me, when he was nice to others, he explained that he must be like that, to make it somewhere,” she said.
That’s why she never saw her father as a father, but rather as a coach. At the same time, she saw her mother only a few months a year since the age of 14 due to her tennis commitment and traveling around the world.
“I’m a flush type of person. I don’t know what happened in a few hours, which is probably why it’s been able to work between us for so long.”
After all, it took its toll on her, towards the end of her career she had problems with bulimia. In addition, she never had a period, she had to force it with drugs, which is one of the reasons why she never had children.
“When someone asks me, I say ‘I don’t want to, I can’t’. That probably describes the situation well. If I wanted to, it would be physically very demanding. But I never had the need to have them after those experiences. The fear of whether I could handle it, it was so big that I didn’t go in,” she added.
But he works on the court with the children. He has his own tennis academy, where he trains children and adults. But she is trying to do the opposite of how her father worked.
“There probably isn’t an exact guide on how to proceed, when to push the child to practice and when he should speak for himself. That’s why I didn’t want to train professionally and I enjoy training amateurs and recreational players. I really enjoy tennis and I pass on the joy of it, Bedáňová admitted.
