She has had the season of her life, for which she deservedly received the main award at the OKsystem Golden Canary 2023 gala on Wednesday evening in Přerov. Markéta Vondroušová, the crowned queen of Czech tennis and Wimbledon winner, did not even have time to rest properly after a demanding year and immediately on Christmas Day again he flies to Australia.
“I was at the sea for a while and in the mountains for a while, but the break was very short. I immediately started moving again and it almost feels as if I didn’t even have one. I immediately jumped back on the train that I know,” said the 24-year-old champion newspaper Aktuálně.cz after Wednesday’s announcement.
The tennis player of the year experienced the longest possible season. She participated in both final events of the season: in November, she played the Tournament of Champions in Cancún, Mexico, and then the finals of the Billie Jean King Cup in Seville, Spain.
She didn’t even expect it and she is already starting the next season. With prospects for another good portion of hard work.
The WTA Association does not pay any attention to the complaints of the players and for the year 2024 it has made the program even more dense.
The number of tournaments in the WTA 1000 category is to increase to ten, and the events in Madrid and Beijing will now last fortnight.
Between Wimbledon and the US Open, the Olympic Games in Paris will take place, where Vondrousová should defend her silver medal from Tokyo.
“We have an even more demanding season ahead of us. We already dealt with the WTA a lot in Cancún during the Tournament of Champions, but unfortunately they are quite adamant. They gave twenty mandatory tournaments, which is completely crazy,” said Vondroušová and indicated that the program will have to be cut to bearing limit.
“We will adjust it somehow, moderate it, because I don’t want to take time off just to have twenty tournaments played. There will still be the Olympics, some team competitions. I want to play that too. We’ll see how it goes, but we are ready to adapt the program so that it is not health risk,” explained the Czech tennis player, who will enter the season as the seventh ranked player in the world.
The overpaid program was recently harshly criticized by world number one Iga Šwiateková, and Vondroušová confirmed that the top players are solving the unbearable situation more and more.
“We have different groups where we talk about it. The tournament of champions was a big problem, we all talked a lot there. Now it’s quieted down a bit, because it’s not playing. But I think that if we keep talking more and more, then they will have to start solving,” she said.
Following strong criticism, WTA chief executive Steve Simon has stepped down, but will remain at the helm of the board.
“Steve has resigned, but of course he’s still there in a position where he has voting rights, so we haven’t done much with it yet,” Vondroušová smiled bitterly.
She has the last few days “off”. Time off in quotes, because this time off is already full of hard training.
On December 23, he will go to visit his family in Sokolov, and he will return to Prague on Christmas Day. He will spend Christmas together with his mother and sister, but already on December 25 he will fly to the other side of the globe.
“The days are pretty intense now. There’s quite a bit,” he admits.
However, her hunger and desire for success never leave her. “People remember those successes, but at the same time it is forgotten very quickly. The US Open came, there was a new Grand Slam winner again. It’s fast, it changes, successes are not celebrated for an extremely long time, so I feel like it again. It will be good to play a lot before Australia and grab the best possible result there,” she pointed out.
However, he prefers to enter the season without specific goals. “I didn’t even have them before the last one. It’s also a lot about health, about how you feel. It’s demanding and long.”
She hopes that her health will be as good as in 2023. “I was fine the whole season, only in Asia in the fall I had some problems with my elbow. But I just rested, I didn’t treat any injuries,” she said.
However, it does have one goal. He confirms the words of his mentor Jiří Hřebec, who a few days ago told Aktuálně.cz:
“I would like her to win the Fed Cup (now the Billie Jean King Cup, note cars), because she really wants it. That’s why he’s still so crazy with the national team, he’s always pushing himself, he really likes playing for the Czech Republic.”
“That’s true,” laughed Vondroušová.
“Since I started playing it, I really like it. In Seville, I was really tired of it, that it didn’t work out, also because the season was so long. It seemed to me that we were within reach, so it really made me quite happy. It’s a big goal for me to prove it with the girls,” concluded the absolute winner of the Zlatý kánár survey.
