Marketa Vondrousova and the secret sauce of Czech tennis success

WATCH: Marketa Vondrousova Sees “First Emotion” From Husband As Wimbledon Triumph Brings Him To Tears

I talked with Barbora Strycova before the match. She’s here. I texted also with Karolina Muchova. We are from the same club. . . I also talked with Karolina [Pliskova] when she was playing Paris. In Czech we have so many great players. We also support each other. It's very nice to see. Marketa Vondrousova, new Wimbledon champion, following her quarterfinal win over Jessica Pegula at the All England Club.

We are all familiar with the proverb, “It takes a village [to raise a child].” While a nation of 10.5 million isn’t exactly a village, and Vondrousova, the first unseeded woman to win Wimbledon, is no longer a child, the proverb can be adapted to tennis, with the Czech Republic as a shining endorsement of its potency.

Vondrousova’s homeland has fewer citizens than another nation that briefly punched above its weight class, Belgium. Italy’s population is almost six times greater than that of the Czech Republic, while France is almost seven times more populous. Tennis is popular in all those countries, yet none of them has come close to producing cream-of-the-crop pros with the frequency and kaleidoscopic variety of the Czech Republic. Vondrousova is just the latest Czech to rock the tennis world.

Vondrousova’s personal history may be the most improbable among all recent the Czech bluebloods.” This is crazy!” is not the most menacing battle cry, but it is the refrain that worked for Vondrousova, and the one she kept repeating on her way to the championship.

It’s easy to understand why the 24-year-old found her own success difficult to process, because it almost ended before it really began. Born in Sokolov, a town of about 20,000, Vondrousova appeared to be on a glide path to stardom when she earned the world No. 1 junior ranking. She won her first WTA event at age 17, in just her second appearance on the tour, and she cracked the Top 100 before her 18th birthday.

A lithe and rangy lefthander who appears taller than her official 5’6”, Vondrousova already showed great tactical imagination—and gentle but deadly touch—when she emerged as a surprise finalist at the 2019 French Open, but the experience proved bittersweet for her.

“I just remember it was such a stress,” she recounted to reporters at Wimbledon. “I just wanted to do well. It was a big thing in Czech [Republic], [but] she just crushed me. It was a very fast match (Ash Barty won, 6-1, 6-3) and I didn't even enjoy it.

“I was very sad after. I just told myself if this happens again, you have to enjoy every moment.”

Vondrousova was almost immediately prevented from activating her new attitude, as she won just one more match in 2019 before she was forced to the sidelines with a wrist injury. The impairment proved more complicated than she expected—“It was just like I had bones floating there,” she told reporters.

She ultimately underwent two surgeries that kept her off the tour for long periods, eroding her game and confidence. But she began to recoup both this year.

Still, Vondrousova was ranked just No. 42 going into Wimbledon. Her thin resume on grass caused her to have low expectations. Her career record on sod was a desultory 7-12, with successive wins just once in main-tour events. But those wins were in Berlin, shortly before Wimbledon, and they gave her hope.

“I was like, ‘Okay, maybe, you know, I’ll get better and I can do something here,’” she said during her march to the title. “For me it’s really crazy this is happening. But I think anything can happen in tennis.”

The secret sauce in Czech success is made from the preponderance of mostly modest tennis clubs spread throughout the nation, an excellent stable of coaches, and national pride that inspires and feeds on itself.

Anything can happen, and it did. But her win wasn’t an example of pure serendipity. While Vondrousova is supremely gifted, she also is the product of a culture in which talented players are not only expected to shoot the moon, but to do so with panache. And they are supported in their efforts by historical precedent as well as, perhaps, the most robust tennis infrastructure of any nation.

Note how Vondrousova mentioned that she and Karolina Muchova both emerged from the same club. The Czech federation and other national agencies play a hand in developing talent through, among other things, financial support and organizing a plethora of tournaments for juniors. But the secret sauce in Czech success is made from the preponderance of mostly modest tennis clubs spread throughout the nation, an excellent stable of coaches (including many pro-tour veterans), and national pride that inspires and feeds on itself.

Players from the former Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have collected 21 Grand Slam singles titles (five women and three men) since the Open Era began. That’s not even counting 18-time major singles champion Martina Navratilova, who was already a budding star when she defected at 18 in 1975.

And doubles? How much time do you have?

In that same span of time, Belgium produced two major champions, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, who collected an impressive 11 singles titles, while just four French players bagged six majors, and a trio of Italians each took one.

The styles of the Czech players are like fingerprints, each of them unique. That enriches the game, and it amounts to a great tribute to the decentralized Czech approach, and the coaches who shepherd players on the journey to the pros. The distinctive feature of the Czech game is an almost chameleon-like versatility, as exemplified by the way Vondrousova has adapted to grass. After her quarterfinal loss, Pegula said of Vondrousova, “She's just tricky. She doesn’t give you a lot of rhythm. And obviously there’s that lefty serve.”

Curiously, the great Swedish tennis boom triggered by Bjorn Borg swiftly died out, despite having been shaped by forces very similar to those powering Czech tennis. The difference may be that the Czechs keep producing a steady stream of elite players, generation after generation, maintaining the momentum of superiority. Vondrousova’s friend Muchova played heroically at Roland Garros, only to lose the final to Iga Swiatek.

“I was crying so much when she lost,” Vondrousova said. “I was so sad.”

It’s Muchova’s turn to cry, but hers are apt to be tears of joy.