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Barbora Krejcikova French Open 2021

Stat Point: Krejcikova defies the odds, surprising French Open last four


Read up on Tennishead’s latest stat summary from the French Open as an unexpected women’s semi-final line-up headlines.

The women’s singles semi-finals were the main event in Paris as all four women looked to make personal and national history.

Semi-final debutants make their mark

All four of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Tamara Zidansek, Barbora Krejcikova and Maria Sakkari played their first Grand Slam semi-finals today at Roland Garros.

This marks only the second time in the Open Era that the women’s singles draw of a Slam has featured four first-time Major semi-finalists.

The other example was the 1978 Australian Open, when the draw contained just 32 players, 17 of whom were Australian, in a time when few top players made the journey to play the Slam down under.

(statistics sourced from The Tennis Podcast)

Famous 52nd for Pavlyuchenkova

By reaching the French Open final, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova broke the women’s record for most Slam tournaments entered before reaching a Grand Slam final, with Roland Garros 2021 being her 52nd main draw appearance.

The previous record was held by Roberta Vinci of Italy, who reached the 2015 US Open final, her 44th main draw.

(statistics sourced from WTA)

Barbora from the blue

Barbora Krejcikova is historically a far stronger doubles than singles player. The Czech has 5 Slam titles, two in women’s doubles (French Open 2018 and Wimbledon 2018) and three in mixed doubles (Australian Open 2019, 2020 and 2021).

In fact, coming into the French Open this year, Krejcikova had as many match wins in Grans Slam singles main draws as she did Grand Slam titles in the two doubles formats.

Krejcikova has only previously reached four Grand Slam singles main draws, at the 2018 and 2020 French Opens (zero wins and three wins respectively) and the 2020 and 2021 Australian Opens (one win at each), accumulating a 5-3 record over four entries.

Hence, by reaching the French Open semi-finals, Krejcikova already doubled her number of Grand Slam singles wins from 5 to 10.

(statistics sourced from WTA)