Already five years ago, she sensationally reached the final of the Roland Garros Grand Slam. She is a Wimbledon winner, an Olympic finalist and a player in the world’s top ten. Nevertheless, Markéta Vondroušová continues to be overlooked and underestimated in the tennis world. Before the start of the French Open, she does not appear among the favorites, according to American experts, this is a mistake.
In a month, Markéta Vondroušová will only celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday. And its potential remains at a high level.
When her mentor, former Czech tennis player Jiří Hřebec, had to predict her future successes recently, he did not hesitate. According to him, the tennis player from Sokolov can become a multiple Grand Slam champion in the following years.
“I keep saying it, for female players, the best age is from twenty-four years old onwards. They already have recorded, experience, they have things sorted out in their heads. And Maky is an exceptional player. It’s purely a question of what kind of desire she will have to win. And here she Fortunately, she’s very competitive. It’s crazy how hard she is. It’s an excellent quality for tennis,” stated Hřebec in an interview with Aktuálně.cz.
According to him, she could easily succeed again on the Paris clay.
“It’s a top that’s perfect for her. With those short balls and variability, she drives her opponents crazy,” noted Hřebec.
American experts now, immediately before the start of Roland Garros, are proving him right.
Renowned tennis journalist Petr Bodo dedicated one of his last articles to Markéta Vondroušová as a possible candidate for great success in Paris.
He chose Nor Casper Ruud as the male equivalent to the Czech player, and called the pair of former finalists of the tournament “the most underrated and overlooked tennis players of all” and “silent killers” who can play one of the main roles on the Parisian clay.
“Vondroušová is valued by a smaller group of fans who respect creative, unpredictable tennis. Tennis that is more jazz than heavy metal. Although she is world number six, she does not get the respect and attention she deserves in a sport crowded with stars and celebrities,” he wrote Bodo.
The famous coach Jimmy Arias, currently the sports director of Nick Bollettieri’s prestigious IMG Florida academy, where he was one of the first students at the age of thirteen and made it to the top five in the world in the 1980s, also spoke about her special position in the current women’s elite.
“Vondrousova has this weird, annoying game that makes you play really bad. So when she’s winning, she doesn’t look great. It’s more like her opponent looks bad,” Arias explained to Tennis.com.
But he himself admitted that he is an enthusiastic fan of the specific art of the Czech tennis player.
“She doesn’t always look like she cares. Sometimes she looks like she’s on a walk. But I like that. She doesn’t seem to care about herself and her game as much as her opponent playing badly. I actually consider it one of the things I really enjoy,” said the fifty-nine-year-old expert.
A year ago at Roland Garros, when Darja Kasatkinová rechristened the Czech tennis player “an ass in the ass”, according to Arias, it was a completely accurate description.
Alexandra Stevenson, the woman who shocked Wimbledon in 1999 by reaching the semi-finals just two weeks after graduating from college and turning pro, shares a similar view.
“Vondroušová is left-handed, but at the same time she’s not a hitter. That in itself is quite rare. She absorbs your pace and can completely redirect it, which really turns you on as a result,” said the American.
She mentioned the way the Czech handled the favored Tunisian Uns Džábirová in the final of last year’s Wimbledon.
“The way she handled her big moment was phenomenal. She showed how mentally tough she is in moments like this. Even though everyone said it was Uns moment, Markéta took the opportunity perfectly.”
That is also why the mentioned personalities will be very curious about how Vondroušová will do at the French Open.
She achieved her best result in the clay part of the season so far in Stuttgart, where she reached the semi-finals and shone with a win over world number two Aryna Sabalenkova.
In both Madrid and Rome, she was eliminated in the third rounds, so in the week before the start of the clay Grand Slam, she is still fine-tuning her form in Strasbourg. On Wednesday, she turned around the match with the Polish Magdalena Frechová, whom she destroyed after sets 5:7, 6:1, 6:0.
2024-05-23 07:23:35
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