Czech women’s tennis is at an elite level, Bouzkova is another proof. Why does she have so much more than the men’s?

Marie Bouzková is this year’s Czech Wimbledon sensation.The 23-year-old tennis player is in the quarterfinals of the Grand Slam for the first time in her career, replacing her more famous teammates who are higher on the rankings. Why is women’s tennis at a higher level than men’s?

If you looked at the WTA rankings back in February, it was a unique spectacle from a Czech perspective. Two players in the top 5, six players in the top 50. Now the rankings are much worse, but Czech women’s tennis is still doing great.

Karolina Pliskova is seventh, Barbora Krejcikova is 14th. Petra Kvitová is 26th and Markéta Vondroušová is forty-ninth. All of them are capable of going far, Krejcikova and Kvitova already have a Grand Slam in their pocket, Vondrousova and Pliskova have reached the final, the latter even twice.

Tereza Martincova is 61st and Marie Bouzkova, this year’s Wimbledon sensation, is 60th. With her first Grand Slam quarter-final, she is sure to jump higher. In 79th place is Katerina Siniakova, who dropped 16 places. Karolína Muchová rounds out the WTA Top 100 from the Czech perspective at 81st place.

Moreover, the doubles is dominated by the Czech duo Krejčíková/Siniaková, who together dominated Wimbledon, the French Open twice, the Australian Open, the Masters Tournament and the Olympics. They are currently in the quarter-finals at the All England Club.

There are 8 Czech tennis players in the first 81 places of the WTA rankings. The great state of Czech women’s tennis is also evidenced by the number of victories in the Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Fed Cup), a tournament for national teams. With 11 trophies, the Czech Republic is second only to the USA (18), third Australia has won seven times, fourth Spain five times.

Only Kvitova (32) and Pliskova (30) have already celebrated their 30th birthdays, otherwise all Czech women are at a young age and still have a big part of their career ahead of them. (Krejcikova 26, Vondrousova 23, Martincova 27, Bouzkova 23, Siniakova 26, Muchova 25).

And watch out, the future is bright too, as Czech tennis is growing more jewels in the juniors. In the ITF junior rankings we can find four Czechs in the top ten. Ninth is 16-year-old Nikola Bartůňková, fifth is 15-year-old Brenda Fruhvirtová, fourth is her two years older sister Linda. In second place is 17-year-old Lucie Havlíčková.

Men’s tennis

The Czech women’s tennis is doing great, but the same cannot be said for the men’s. Only Jiri Vesely (68) and Jiri Lehecka (72) are in the top 100 of the ATP rankings. Then we can find Zdeněk Kolář at 119th place, Vít Kopřiva at 126th place and Tomas Macháč at 142nd place, but he dropped due to an injury and has not been on the courts since April.

While the Czechs are expected to participate in the second week of every women’s Grand Slam, it is a utopia for the men. Vesely was the furthest, reaching the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2016 and 2018. Lehecka hasn’t made it past the first round of a Grand Slam yet, same with Zdenek Kolar. Macháč reached the second round at this year’s and last year’s Australian Open, his best.

When you look under social media posts about Czech women tennis players, you often come across questions from foreign fans about how it is possible that the Czech Republic has such great women tennis players, but the men’s tennis is at a much lower level.

The answer is practically simple. The number one sport in the Czech Republic is football or hockey. The vast majority of children play these sports. MMA is also on the rise, tennis has a lot of competition, and it is very expensive compared to other sports, so there is no one to choose from.

Whereas for aspiring female athletes in the Czech Republic, tennis is almost the number one sport. Not many parents give their girls to football (although it is on the rise now) or hockey. Together with athletics and possibly dancing, tennis is the sport where most parents direct their daughters.

Thus, more female tennis players are logically more likely to make it among the elite. In addition, and this is not ill-intentioned towards women’s tennis, there is much more competition in the men’s rankings.

The days of Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek are over, we will have to wait a while for another Czech in the top ten. The 16-year-old Jakub Mensik looks very promising, who reached the final of the Australian Open in January and even had a few practice sessions with Novak Djokovic. You can also watch him at this year’s Wimbledon, so far he is in the 1/16 finals.

Source:: Wimbledon, ATP, WTA