By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Czechs have a strong tradition at Wimbledon and that tradition continued in the 2023 women’s singles final.
Marketa Vondrousova, a 24-year-old left-hander born in Sokolov, Czech Republic became the longest shot to ever win the Wimbledon women’s championship with a 6-4, 6-4 win in the final over Ons Jabeur of Tunisia. Ranked No. 42, Vondrousova is the first ever non-seeded player to win the Wimbledon women’s singles title since seedings were introduced to the event in 1924.
Left-handed Czech women’s singles champions at Wimbledon are somewhat common as Martina Navratilova won the title nine times from 1978 to 1990 and Petra Kvitova more recently in 2011 and 2014. Jana Novotna, the 1998 Wimbledon champion, is the only other Czech woman to win the singles title at the All England Club, but Karolina Pliskova (2021), Hana Mandlikova (1981 and 1986) and Vera Sukova (1964also reached the women’s singles final.
Czech Jan Kodes is the elder statesman of Czech tennis becoming the first player representing Czechoslovakia to win the singles title when he won the infamous boycotted Wimbledon in 1973. The greatest ever Czech men’s player was Ivan Lendl, who tried desperately to win at the All England Club, but finished one match win shy of the title in 1986 and 1987.
The affinity that the Czech people and tennis players specifically have for Wimbledon certainly germinates from Navratilova with her record nine titles in singles and a record-tying 20 titles overall including doubles and mixed doubles. Navratilova fled the Communist and controlling government in 1975, famously seeking asylum in the United States at the 1975 U.S. Open (as you can read about here: http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/3532
Jabeur, ironically, was looking to become only the second player representing Africa to win a singles title at Wimbledon when a Czech player named Jaroslav Drohny won the men’s singles title at the All England Club in 1954 with an Egyptian passport because he, like Navratilova, had defected from his Communist homeland.
In her post-match interview with ESPN’s Mary Joe Fernandez, Vondrousova spoke of the special “Czech Club” that she now joins as a new Wimbledon champion from her homeland.
“It’s crazy that now I’m one of them,” she said.
