Hard data is impossible to come by. But how many sports careers were diminished, if not outright ruined, by COVID-19? How many athletes coordinated their training to peak for the 2020 Olympics … only to lose timing (and motivation) when the games were postponed a year? How many college athletes never recovered from losing that spring season? How many skiers and rowers and football players, crushing it in the fall of 2019, never got their mojo back?
Now comes Barbora Krejčíková on the other side of the net. In 2019, she was 24 and a star doubles player on the WTA Tour. But she had no singles profile to speak of, failing to crack the top 100 playing solo.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. In her native Czech Republic—where coronavirus rates were relatively low, and therefore restrictions were relatively lax—she spent the pandemic dedicating herself to training. Some tennis on the court. But mostly conditioning. She went for runs in the natural beauty of her hometown of Brno. She added some strength for durability. She worked on flexibility. When play resumed in the latter half of 2020, Krejčíková promptly shaved 50 points off her singles ranking, which included finally achieving her long-held goal of holding a double-digit ranking.
Then came the real surge. In 2021 she strung together seven matches at the opportune time and won the French Open. For good measure, she took the doubles title as well.
It was a career moment, but she took no victory lap. She simply changed shoes and headed to Wimbledon. “Players that won a major ahead of me—not all of them, but some of them—they won and after that they didn’t deliver any results,” she says. “I don’t want to be this kind of a player. I don’t want to be known for this. I still want to be known for playing tennis really well.”
Done and done. Two years later she and her doubles partner, Kateřina Siniaková, are best in class, having won the last four majors they’ve entered, something veering on a Grand Slam. And in singles, Krejčíková has overcome some injuries and is a force in the sport, a top-10 player (currently ranked No. 12) with wins over Iga Świątek and Aryna Sabalenka in 2023.
Before playing a match at the Miami Open, overlooking the Atlantic from an apartment in Aventura, Krejčíková spoke with Sports Illustrated. Some outtakes below, edited lightly for brevity and clarity.
Jonathan Hui/USA TODAY Sports
SI: How are you on the days when you have a big match?
Barbora Krejčíková: I had a very nice sleep during the night and I’m really excited, because this is why I’m playing. I want to play on big stages. I want to play with the top players. Slowly but surely I’m coming back to the top and I think that I belong.
SI: I love this confidence. You seem to be putting yourself out there. “I want to be at the top” is not something you would have said a few years ago. What brought this on?
BK: Why not? I’m thinking: I have good results. I’m trying to be as consistent as I can. I work really hard, every single day. So, I mean, why not? Like, why not? … I’m really playing with all the best [players] and I’m playing really close matches with them. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. So I really don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t be in the top 10 and why I shouldn’t play with them. All year long.
SI: When do you play your best?
BK: When I’m going to play the biggest challenge that I can get and I feel very motivated by the player that I’m playing. When I played these two times with Iga [Świątek], there are so many long rallies and she just doesn’t give you any single points for free. So you kind of need to suffer a little bit out there to beat her. And I don’t mind any of these things.
SI: Players often talk about digging deep. When you dig deep, where do you go?
BK: Playing the top level, you know we all know how to play tennis. We all know how to serve, how to return, how to play groundstrokes. So I feel sometimes it’s more about luck. Sometimes it’s more about how you wake up. I think the differences are very, very little. So a lot of it is focus—it’s very important because it’s just one single point here and there that turns the matches around.
SI: What’s the biggest mental challenge that comes with being a top player?
BK: When you are a top player, you are still not gonna be on the top form all the time. So moving forward is when I’m not playing well. If you’re playing well and things are going well, it’s great. You usually win. But then if things are not going great, then you really need to find yourself, stay mentally strong and figure it out.
SI: So four years ago, you’re outside the top 100. Three years ago, COVID–19, you’re outside the top 50. Then you win a major. Now, regardless of what your ranking is, I think everybody sees you as a top-10 player. How are you going to explain your career 25 years from now?
BK: The key for me was to actually enter the top 100, because that was a really big goal for me. I had a couple of matches where if I’d won that match, I would be top 100. But I actually didn’t make it. I put so much pressure on myself. It was like this for a couple of years. I actually told myself, “O.K., maybe I will [only] make it as a doubles player.” So I kinda just took the pressure off myself. Then in one tournament, I actually got to the top 100 out of nowhere. I achieved the goal that I always wanted. And then from there on, I felt that I was really just playing free.
SI: Do you think you’d be ranked higher or lower in singles if you didn’t play doubles?
BK: It’s 50/50. Doubles definitely helps [singles], but then with the scheduling, it’s very difficult. So I think it’s 50/50. There are pros and cons for playing doubles. But I love playing doubles and I love to compete and I love to play matches. So for me, playing doubles during my days off is better than only going there and practicing.
Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun/USA TODAY NETWORK
SI: How would you describe the level of your friendship with your partner [Kateřina Siniaková]?
BK: Well, we know each other for a very long time. That helps the partnership. The styles—the way she plays and the way that I play—it’s a really good combo. So I think it’s really like working. We are very dangerous to the other players… it’s very difficult for us to find a lot of time together. She’s based in Prague. I am based in Brno, so we don’t really see each other at all. We only text. During the tournament, it’s also different, because she has her own singles and she has her own practices and she has her own stuff that she’s working on. And I have my own stuff when I’m practicing as well. So off the court, if we can, we can definitely improve this to do more. I don’t know, more dinners, and stuff like this. But then I think when we go on the court—we meet up there, or we go warm up before the doubles— I think the chemistry is really, really good there.
SI: In the U.S., the Hall of Fame is a big deal. If you are a basketball player, have you scored enough points? How much does a Tennis Hall of Fame mean to you?
BK: It means a lot. It has a huge history, and I like these traditions and I like these historical things not only in tennis, but also in general in life. So for me it’s really something special. I still think I have a long way to go, right? I would like to achieve more. If one day I can get to the selection of these players, my CV is going to have to be big!
SI: What else should people know about you?
BK: Well, it's a little bit complicated. Sleeping is maybe the No. 1 hobby [laughs], but I like to listen to good music. Here’s a big deal: In Indian Wells I was able to meet with Pink. It was really an amazing experience for me to be able to chat with her and have a conversation. She’s very popular in the Czech Republic, so we know most of the songs, but then it’s really interesting to actually see how they are and how much energy they have.
I really like nature. I live in a very small city, so there is a lot of nature there, a lot of ponds. I pick mushrooms with my family. I have a dog back home. My parents look after him. I have two older brothers. They are very supportive of my career. They watch all my matches. They text after all my matches. I am an aunt. I have a nephew and a niece. So when I get back home, I really like spending time with them. And I really like bringing them some presents from around the world, from the journeys I have.
SI: You have one Czech beer to drink. What are you choosing?
BK: I’m not really a beer fan. My coach is a big beer fan. He likes beer. I think he understands the beer. And he says that really the best beer is the pilsner. So, I'm gonna go with pilsner, because my coach is always right.
