It is a question that comes up again and again. Just what is it about the Czech Republic that enables it to produce so many great players? From Martina Navratilova and Hana Mandlikova, back when it was Czechoslovakia, to Petr Korda, Jana Novotna and more recently Petra Kvitova and Barbora Krejcikova, a conveyor belt of grand slam title winners have hailed from a population of just 10.5 million people.
For Karolina Muchova, the latest Czech to reach a grand slam final, at Roland Garros last month, maybe the only tangible reason for the success is the fact that others have blazed a trail. “Maybe it’s because the younger girls practice with us,” she said on the eve of Wimbledon, where she will be the No 16 seed. “When I was younger and there was Karolina [Pliskova] and Petra [Kvitova, the two-time Wimbledon champion], I could practise [with them] and I saw that they can do it. I felt like I can do it too.”
Muchova cannot remember what she was doing when Kvitova won her Wimbledon titles, in 2011 and 2014 – “I was probably somewhere in school” – but she shares with Kvitova an affinity for grass, immediately visible in her game, even though she only played on grass for the first time as recently as 2017, in Surbiton. “I immediately loved it, I love the surface and the way everything was working there. You play one volley, you don’t have to play five volleys, like on clay. I loved the surface from the start.”
Mixing serving and volleying with the most deft of drop shots, the 26-year-old Muchova flummoxed her opponents at Roland Garros as she reached her first slam final, beating the world No 2 Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals and pushing the world No 1 Iga Swiatek all the way in the final before bowing out 6-4 in the deciding set. Her variety and fighting spirit made her a favourite with the crowds in Paris, just as she has been at Wimbledon, where she has twice reached the quarter-finals, in 2019 and 2021. That variety, she said, came naturally.
“When I rewatch my videos from when I was 10 years old, you would find me there playing drop shots and slices and going to the net,” she said. “I think it was always there. [Ever] since I picked up the racket, I liked to play this way. Then when I was older, I looked up to Roger [Federer] and players like this, playing this aggressive, attacking style and I saw myself in that a little bit, in the way I would like to play the game. That helped and I tried to play some similar shots and I just enjoy the game to play it this way.”
Having battled a series of injuries throughout her career, Muchova left Paris upbeat after an “amazing two weeks”. “I’m very, very happy for the result and the experience I got. I have great matches under the belt, it helps the confidence too. She also proved to herself that she could compete at the back end of a grand slam. “For sure, I proved to myself I can even get the win, hopefully in the future,” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about the future much but I had great matches against very good opponents. I felt like I was very close [in the final]. So I proved to myself that I can do good, I can play the best. It’s very motivational for me. The loss [in the final] is the only one [disappointing] thing, but overall, super, super great experience and I’m really happy for it.”
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Muchova did not play a warm-up event on grass and will be wary of her first-round opponent in Jule Niemeier, a German who reached the quarter-finals last year. Expectations, too, will be higher this time round, thanks to Paris, but she said she feels mentally rested and while she is not putting any extra pressure on herself to do well at Wimbledon, like all top players, the idea of going far does not faze her.
“I’m honestly really, really glad that I got back to the level where I was, three years back, to be seeded,” she said. “I’m just trying to enjoy that because I had some struggles in the past. It’s not a big pressure for now, but somewhere inside myself, I know that I always put a little pressure in there and I actually would say that I compete better under pressure.”
