Czech Republic’s player development
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Karolina Pliskova
‘Silent venom’ of Karolina Pliskova
Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova is world’s No.6 but, very few knew of her until the recently concluded US Open. The 24-year-old Pliskova’s track record clearly shows her steady rise. She was world’s No.12 as a Junior and in 2012, first qualified for the French Open. Since then, she has steadily climbed up the rankings. She is also ranked 12 in Doubles, partnering her left-handed twin sister Krystina. As for Karolina’s image, she is a 6′ 2″-tall ‘effortless and elegant player’, and her potential is enormous.
In player behavior, we see the loss of a big point usually resulting in screams and racquet abuse. Karolina walks away from a bad shot as if it never happened. It seems like there is no memory of a bad shot in her. Not even a mention of it in her interviews. Even after losing a match, she seemed to tell the world “I will live another day”. She is calm and collected, and this ‘cool-cat’ behavior is really helping her. Having come through Junior and Women’s streams, she seems to know that Tennis cannot be played without making a mistake, and this year, she has beaten 8 top 10 players. To date, she has won 6 Singles and 5 Doubles titles. Her secret weapon appears to be the deadly ‘silent-venom.’
Different brand of Tennis
Hitting Flat shots in Tennis, dominated the postwar era from the 50’s through 70’s. Of recent, now and then, a player would surface and master this art, and beat very good players. Karolina is one such player. It is surprising how flat shots disturb modern players. Modern equipment enhance the deadly effect of flat drives. Serena Williams looked lost against Karolina in the US Open for this reason. Even among the Men, Federer’s finishing ground-strokes, Wawrinka’s backhand and the much feared Del Potro forehand are flat.
Pliskova’s most devastating weapon is her flat serve. At the speed she serves and plays, opponents cannot change direction without committing errors. With this, Pliskova takes her service advantage deep into the 4th shot of the rally. It certainly spelt a death-blow to many elite players. This is the so called S+4 formula to win – once a well known difficult method in Tennis, because it needs a big serve that always works.
Another peculiarity of Pliskova is her ability to ‘grow’ into the match. The ‘venomous’ ability she exhibits at the end of the match is something that grows as the match progresses. It comes from her ability to adapt, withstand harsh punishments and then turn it around to win. It really sends ‘shock waves’ through her opponents. Also, at the US Open, time and again we saw her immense physical ability to cover court and to reach the net with graceful ease, repeatedly. All these reduces the shot-selection choice of opponents to a very few ineffective strokes.
Along with all these, she also has one of the best return-of-serve in today’s Women’s Tennis. It is very difficult to ace her and she punishes weak serves mercilessly. It is really tough to serve to a player of her ability. Serena could not cope with this and double-faulted at match point at the US Open. In the history of the game, very few had all these ‘weapons’, and those who did, became world beaters.
Czech Republic’s Tennis
Even under Communism, Czechs exhibited tremendous success in Tennis. Jan Kodes, against whom a few Sri Lankans have played, won Wimbledon in 1973. After that, the Czechs rolled out Women players such as Martina Navratilova, Jana Navotna, Hana Mandikova, Helena Sukova, Petra Kvitova, and Men such as Jaroslav Drobny, Ivan Lendl and current best Tomas Berdych. In fact, the first East European country to do so well in Tennis, after the fall of the ‘iron curtain’, is the Czech Republic.
The Czech elite programme is well known in Tennis circles. Many countries have come up with elite programmes, but none have been as successful as the Czech Republic. Spain, which has a large number of events and players, is often on a ‘roller coaster ride’, when it comes to elite player development. The biggest contributing factor of Czech Republic’s development is their high national standard of the game. Any player coming through that has to be exceptional.
Now, we have another Czech, Karolina Pliskova at the top. She and her sister are the first twins in WTA history to win a doubles event. Karolina’s tattoos, probably, are the first displayed on Wimbledon’s centre court. Her ‘silence’ is more frightening than the ‘war drums’ of a player brigade. Her physical presence and grace awe opponents and captivate spectators. Although Pliskova lost to Germany’s seasoned campaigner Angelique Kerber in the US Open final, she beat Kerber two weeks earlier, to take the Cincinnati Open.
Change in rankings
The much expected change in world rankings this year happened in the Women’s side. Serena Williams lost her No.1 spot to Kerber, when she lost to Pliskova. Kerber, on her part, consolidated her position as the best player of 2016, in a well planned and hard-fought US Open final against Pliskova. For the foreseeable future, one cannot discount the ‘princess-in-waiting’– Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova.
–George Paldano, Former intl. player; Accredited Coach of Germany; National, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup captain/coach– georgepaldano@yahoo.com