We are once again guaranteed a brand-new Wimbledon champion on the women’s side, as Barbora Krejcikova exited the event just yesterday.
Heading into this year’s tournament, little was expected from the defending champion, who had endured an injury-riddled past year since that triumph.
However, she showcased her talent to claim two impressive victories, before fitness concerns once again emerged to undo all her hard work against Emma Navarro.
She flew into a one-set lead, but slowly regressed as the day went on.
The emotional toll of this steady decline was there for all to see.
Barbora Krejcikova reduced to tears during Wimbledon loss
In a lengthy but very poetic summation of the match, Catherine Whitaker first rated Navarro’s performance for The Tennis Podcast: ‘She was very impressive from midway through the second set.
‘There was some fascinating exchanges between her and her coach Peter Ayers, but I do feel like we should deal with the Krejcikova of all this first because there was some incredibly distressing scenes out there on Court One in the deciding set when Krejcikova started to fail physically.’
She then shifted her attention to last year’s Wimbledon champion: ’I first thought it was the back that was troubling her cause she kept on being bent double and using her knees as a as a brace, and we know she’s had this this chronic back issue, but it turns out she was feeling physically very, very ill.
‘She became dizzy. She described in quotes afterwards, she didn’t come to a press conference because she wasn’t well enough, but she did provide some quotes. She said it was basically like she powered down. It sounded like it happened quite suddenly and it was quite dramatic.
‘She was so upset, she was in tears at the back of the court, shaking, you know… that is not how you want your title defence to end and like, I think we should remember here that Barbora Krejcikova has barely played a match for a year.
‘She was the bookies’ favourite in her opening round match to lose. Alexandra Eala was favourite to beat her.
‘The fact that she won two matches here and made it competitive against Emma Navarro is good news with Barbora Krejcikova given where she’s been recently.
‘Do you remember watching her in her match at the French Open? I found that quite harrowing actually how un-athletic, uncompetitive she looked, so I thought, there’s no way she’s going to be able to mount any kind of Wimbledon title defence.
‘She looked like herself at this tournament, and I think that’s uplifting even if it ended on an incredibly upsetting note… and it was upsetting.’
Krejcikova made a prediction about Eala’s future after that first-round match, and it’s sad to see someone so kind and supportive suffer so much.
Barbora Krejcikova’s torrid past 12 months continues at Wimbledon
Since beating Jasmine Paolini in that final 12 months ago, Krejcikova has failed to recapture anything close to that level.
Sadly, this is due to things that have simply been out of her control, though.
She missed almost all of that summer’s tennis, retiring from her sole event in Prague before the US Open, before then suffering a handful of first-round exits.
Then, in Ningbo, the true injury struggles began, retiring mid-match from her clash with Mirra Andreeva.
Even a reduced schedule has not been able to ease Krejcikova’s troubles, who did pull out of Eastbourne right before Wimbledon.
It’s so sad to see a player with so much quality, who was on track to beat Navarro yesterday, continue to be scuppered by injuries and illness.
Hopefully, the next year can be far kinder to the 29-year-old.
