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January 22, 2020,
Excitement is building.
Swelling in the often sweltering Australian January heat.
Fans do not mind because the best of the best show up for the first major Grand Slam of the year and the Australian Open delivers in huge star driven ways.
Yes plural.
One star who has her fans eagerly anticipating her return after a debilitating injury is Marketa Vondrousova.
Previous to the 2020 Australian Open, as reported by wtatennis.com, “Fourth seed Belinda Bencic resumes an old junior rivalry with Daria Kasatkina as first-round action kicks off the brand new Adelaide International, while Roland Garros runner-up Marketa Vondrousova makes her return from a six-month injury hiatus, Anastasija Sevastova seeks to maintain an unbeaten record against Donna Vekic and Petra Kvitova’s withdrawal moves Angelique Kerber into the seeded ranks.”
That is good news. Marketa is back and all eyes will be on her down under.
She made huge news at the 2019 French Open by reaching the finals.
Then the news was a little surprising. Here is the way that we looked at it.
Don’t be sad that it’s over. Be glad that it happened.
Nice expression. Soothing too.
Unfortunately, who ever said that never watched the 2019 French Open Final.
The Czech Republic’s super star tennis player Marketa Vondrousova is not only glad that the 2019 French Open final is over, she probably wished that it never happened.
At least not like this.
As reported by the Washington Post, “Australia’s Ashleigh Barty, wasn’t the hardest hitting or, at 5-foot-5, the most physically imposing. But she stood tallest in the end, needing just 70 minutes to rout 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, 6-1, 6-3, in Saturday’s final to claim the first Grand Slam title of her career.”
At just the tender age of 19, the box score aside, that was an incredible accomplishment.
Then came this news.
The WTA reported back in September of 2019, “After struggling with a left wrist injury after her breakthrough French Open run, Marketa Vondrousova announced she is out for the rest of the 2019 season after undergoing surgery.
The World No.22-ranked Vondrousova, a lefty, had been turning heads earlier in the year after reaching the final in Budapest – then the second WTA final of her career – and backing it up with back-to-back quarterfinal runs at Premier Mandatories Indian Wells and Miami.”
We are anticipating that this young rising tennis luminary will back it up again.
Have you seen her dynamics on the courts? Time for a closer look.
She has a career-high Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) ranking of world No. 14.
Ms. Vondroušová finished runner-up at the 2019 French Open, where she became the first teenage Grand Slam finalist on the WTA Tour since Caroline Wozniacki nearly a decade earlier.
She has won one WTA singles title in four finals in total.
Market is a former world No. 1 junior, having won two junior Grand Slam doubles titles.
She had a quick breakthrough on the WTA Tour, winning the 2017 Ladies Open Biel Bienne at the age of 17 in just her second career WTA singles event.
This title helped her reach the top 100 of the WTA rankings before turning 18 years old.
Incredibly impressive.
Vondroušová’s signature shot is the drop shot. What a signature shot. If you are a player on the other side of the net, it has to be one of the most annoying shots in tennis.
She is one of the best returners on the WTA Tour, having led the tour in percentage of return games won and percentage of return points won in 2019 among all players with at least ten matches.
Markéta in Sokolov, a small town in the Czech Republic near the country’s western border with Germany.
Born into a sports oriented family, Marketa’s father introduced her to tennis at the age of four, having played the sport recreationally. Her mother played volleyball for SK Slavia Prague in the top-flight Extraliga.
The new world of female sports continues to exemplify how girls are not limiting themselves to one sport but participate in a variety. When Marketa was young, she tried a variety of sports including skiing, football, table tennis, and floorball, excelling in all of these.
She soon began to focus on tennis entering a national mini-tennis tournament on Štvanice Island in Prague in 2006.
Marketa began playing on the ITF Women’s Circuit in May 2014 at the age of 14, and qualified for her first main draw later in the year.
At the age of 15, she moved to Prague to train more regularly in the capital. A lesson in what most of us need to do to pursue our dreams.
As Marketa continued to grow as a top tennis player, her best performance of the 2019 season came at the French Open, where she made it to the final without dropping a set. As an unseeded player, she defeated four seeded players including No. 12 Anastasija Sevastova in the fourth round and No. 26 Johanna Konta in the semifinals.
Congrats to the rising star.
In terms of her dynamic playing style, Marketa’s signature shot is the drop shot.
In general, she has a crafty style of play and employs a wide variety of shots. She developed this type of playing style from working with one of her early coaches Jan Fuchs, who played the same way.
Her game often includes long, strategic rallies in which she makes use of her left-handed topspin forehand. Aside from playing drop shots, Vondroušová has described her style of play as, “I’m just trying to play aggressive and maybe, like, mix the points, and I just want to serve well and move well.”
Her favorite surface is clay, the surface she grew up playing on. She also likes hard courts because of her playing style.
The tour noticed that she excels in her return game more than her service game.
In 2019, she led the WTA Tour in first serve points won on return among players with at least ten matches, winning 43.4 per cent of these points. She was also first in percentage of return games won and percentage of return points won overall.
So with an incredible comeback story we were hoping Marketa was primed to make a deep run in the 2020 Australian Open.
“Everyone loves a comeback story, and everyone loves the underdog as well. I kind of feel like I’ve been the underdog. Hopefully that inspires people to not give up on themselves and their lives and not give up on their dreams.”… James Arthur
Unfortunately that did not happen.
As reported by rt.com, “Russian tennis star Svetlana Kuznetsova created one of the biggest sensations on the second competitive day of the Australian Open, knocking out French Open finalist Marketa Vondrousova from the tournament. The Czech player was sent packing, losing her first round match in three sets, 2-6, 6-4, 4-6.”
The unseeded Russian, viewed as the underdog in the match, produced a surprising performance, proving that she is still able to compete against and defeat the top-ranked players.
Ms. Kuznetsova, a two-time Grand Slam winner shocked her Czech counterpart in the first set, winning it 6-2.
Marketa fought back to force a third set showdown but eventually succumbed to Svetlana’s determination and gritty play.
Well, so much for comebacks.
At least for now.
Marketa’s comeback will just have to wait. We’re sure that it will happen.
She’s a brilliant star and we will be waiting patiently for her to come back and shine again.
~ ~ ~
Opening photo fciwomenswrestling.com femcompetitor.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com, grapplingstars.com, USOpen.org-photo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark%C3%A9ta_Vondrou%C5%A1ov%C3%A1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_French_Open_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_Singles
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/06/08/french-open-womens-final-barty-vs-vondrousova/
https://www.wtatennis.com/news/1569829/adelaide-2020-monday-s-order-of-play-and-match-points
https://www.rt.com/sport/478787-svetlana-kuznetsova-australian-open/
