Former Wimbledon semifinalist Barbora Strycova of Plzen, Czech Republic announced her retirement from women’s tennis on Tuesday at the age of 35 according to Riley Morgan of Yahoo! Sports. The news of Strycova’s retirement is not a huge surprise, as she announced her pregnancy on March 26.
By reaching the semifinals of the most prestigious grass-court tournament in the world, Strycova was unseeded. She did however beat four seeded-players to reach the final four. They were Lesia Tsurenko of the Ukraine in the first round, Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands in the third round, Elise Mertens of Belgium in the fourth round, and Johanna Konta of Great Britain in the quarterfinals.
In addition to reaching the final four of Wimbledon two years ago, Strycova also won the Wimbledon women’s doubles title in 2019 with Su-wei Hsieh of Chinese Taipei. Strycova and Hsieh defeated Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and Yifan Xu of China in the final, 6-2, 6-4. Strycova was also ranked number one in the world in women’s doubles in 2019.
At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Strycova won the bronze medal in women’s doubles. She teamed up with Lucie Safarova to beat Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic, 7-5, 6-1 in all-Czech matchup.
Strycova, who was ranked as high as 16th in the world in women’s singles, won two WTA tournaments. Her first title came at the 2011 Bell Challenge in Quebec City, Canada, where she beat Marina Erakovic of New Zealand in the final, 4-6, 6-1, 6-0. Strycova also won the 2017 Linz Open in Austria, where she beat Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia, 6-4, 6-1 in the final. Upon hearing her retirement, world number one Ashleigh Barty of Australia, stated Strycova was “one hell of a chick,” and praised her for work ethic and positive attitude in a tweet.
For FREE!
