Czech mates Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova on the podium at last summer's Olympics
psychological thing,” she said. “There was something that was holding me back. I had seen all these other Czech girls make it ahead of me. I wanted to get there too, but I was putting too much pressure on myself. Before Roland Garros 2020 I just said to myself: ‘OK, no more pressure, no more thinking about whether I’m going to make the top 100. Maybe it’s never going to happen. I just have to accept that.’ Then suddenly I made the fourth round at Roland Garros and I was up to No 85 in the world.” Krejcikova has workedwith sports psychologists since she was a teenager. “I think it’s been really important,” she said. “It’s helpedme a lot, to be able to talk about how I’m feeling. I think it’s important to be able to talk about those things to someone who understands andwho can help you.” At Roland Garros last summer Krejcikova became the first woman for 21 years to win both the doubles and singles titles at the same French Open. This year, however, she chose not to play mixed doubles at the Australian Open, where she had won the title three years in a row, in order to conserve her energies for the singles and women’s doubles. Does she think there might come a time when she drops doubles completely and focuses only on singles, as do most of today’s leading women? “I don’t know,” she said. “Right now it’s not what I’m thinking of. For the moment I want to keep what I’mdoing. But who knows what will happen in the future?”
‘There was something that was holding me back. I had seen all these other Czech girls make it ahead of me’
Looking back, I think the pause that we had in 2020 really helpedme.” That first tennis shutdown because of the pandemic two years ago enabled Krejcikova to spend time working on her game and practising with and playing against other leading Czechwomen, who played amongst themselves in a number of events in their home country before international competition resumed. “It alsomade me see that there are other things in the world that are happening, are tougher andmore difficult than just me playing tennis,” Krejcikova said. “I was like: ‘Well, I go and I play tennis and I lose, but there are actually people who are losing their lives.’ I just felt more like: ‘Well, just relax, because you are healthy. Just appreciate this and just enjoy the game. You can do something that maybe other people would like to but cannot’.” That change in Krejcikova’s mental approach was crucial to turning around her singles career. “It was really a mental,
81
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software