Melbourne mission Barbora Krejcikova competing at this year's Australian Open, where she reached the quarter-finals
One of the most remarkable aspects of her Roland Garros triumphwas the fact that it had taken her so long to establish herself as a regular singles competitor on the main tour. Having broken into the world’s top 200 in 2014, she took another six years tomake the top 100, which she finally achieved by reaching the fourth round at the French Open in 2020. However, Krejcikova’s success in doubles, particularly after winning the French Open andWimbledon alongside Katerina Siniakova in 2018, meant that she had grown accustomed to playing on the sport’s biggest stages. In women’s doubles she has won four Grand Slam tournaments, the Olympics and the WTA Finals. She has also won three Grand Slam titles inmixed doubles. “Having had the experience of playing in those biggest stadiums and having won a couple of Grand Slam titles in doubles and a couple inmixed doubles, I think that was all really helpful,” she said. “When you’re
playing in those stadiums in singles, you know that you’ve already played there and won there. For me it really worked having had success in doubles first.” Nevertheless, those years when her singles ranking lagged a long way behind her doubles ranking were particularly challenging. With her doubles ranking she could get into any tournament, but in singles she was sometimes not ranked high enough even tomake the qualifying competitions. “I think I was luckier than many other girls because I was doing well in doubles,” she said. “That enabledme to earn some prize money, which financed my singles. “It was tough. I wanted to play all the big tournaments withmy partner because we were doing so well, but I was also trying to find time to play in the ITF events, the $25,000 tournaments, to try to improve my singles ranking, and to have some weeks when I could rest or work onmy game.
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