- Marketa Vondrousova is a Czech professional tennis player.
- She has a career-high ranking of world number 10 by the Women’s Tennis Association.
- She became the winner at Wimbledon on July 15th, 2023.
Marketa Vondrousova, 24, wowed many tennis fans when she became the women’s single Wimbledon champion with a a 6-4 6-4 victory on Saturday. The Czech athlete defeated Tunisian player Ons Jabeur in straight sets during the memorable match, and made history as the first unseeded winner. The official Wimbledon Twitter account didn’t hesitate to highlight her big achievement when they shared a post that featured a photo of her in shock on Centre Court after the win and called her “unstoppable.”
Since many tennis fans were rooting for Ons during the match, Marketa’s win was shocking. Ons lost to Elena Rybakina during last year’s final, so her supporters were hoping for a triumph this year, and after she was defeated by Marketa, Ons called the loss “the most painful loss of my career” in her post-match interview, according to the Independent.
Find out more about Marketa and her background below.
She didn’t compete in Wimbledon last year.
Despite coming out on top this year, Marketa was actually in a cast after going through surgery on her left wrist this time last year. She went to London, England to support her friend, Swedish player Mirjam Bjorklund, who was playing in qualifying for the first time. Marketa talked about the difference a year has made in an interview published a day before she won Wimbledon.
“I mean, here on grass, it was almost impossible ’cause, as I said, I didn’t play many matches on grass before,” she said, according to Yahoo News. “My best one was second round. Yeah, I mean, for me, when it was clay or hard, maybe I would say, yeah, maybe it’s possible. But grass was impossible for me. It’s even crazier that this is happening.”
She was runner-up at the 2019 French Open.
The result made her the first teenage Major finalist in almost a decade. In addition to that achievement, she won one singles title out of four finals on the WTA Tour and a silver medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. She is also a former junior world No. 1, winning two major doubles titles.
Marketa’s been playing tennis since she was four years old.
Her father introduced her to the sport and she started playing recreationally. Her mother was also into sports and played volleyball for SK Slavia Prague in the top-flight Extraliga. In addition to tennis, Marketa tried other sports like skiing, football, table tennis, and floorball, but tennis is what she decided to continue. She entered a national mini-tennis tournament on Štvanice island in Prague in 2006, and finished third. She then became qualified for an international tournament in Umag in Croatia. As an eight-year-old competing against mostly nine-year-olds, she lost in the first round but won the consolation bracket.
She is supported by other Czech tennis players.
The new champion admitted to talking to Barbora Krejcikova and Karolina Muchova before big matches, in a previous interview, and said they support each other whenever they can. “I talked with Barbora Krejcikova before the [semifinal],” she said during this year’s Wimbledon. “She’s here. I texted also with Karolina Muchova. We are from the same club. I feel like we just support each other.”
Marketa has become the fourth Czech woman to reach the Wimbledon final and the third in the past 10 years, joining two-time champion Petra Kvitova and former No.1 Karolina Pliskova. She also became the first player to beat five seeds to win a major title since Barbora at Roland Garros in 2021 and the first at SW19 since Petra won her first Wimbledon title in 2011. “In Czech, we have so many great players,” Marketa also said. “We also support each other. It’s very nice to see.”
Marketa got married in 2022.
She married IT project manager Stepan Simek in Prague in July of last year. The lovebirds have reportedly known each other since they were children and dated for seven years before saying “I do.” She took to Instagram shortly after the wedding to share sweet photos from the special day and received a lot of congratulatory messages.