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What Does The Future Hold For Ekaterina Alexandrova?

The anomalous story of a Russian tennis player who perfected her game in Czechia and now has reached a crucial moment in her career.

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CAREER BEGINNINGS AND THE MOVE FROM MOSCOW TO PRAGUE

Ekaterina Alexandrova was born on November 15, 1994 in Chelyabinsk, a Siberian city of about 1.2 million inhabitants located to the East of the Urals, close to the border with Kazakhstan. In order to have more information, I visited Wikipedia: founded at the end of the 1700s around a military fortress, the city began to grow rapidly by the early 20th century as a result of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and later on became a major industrial centre under the Soviet Union. Two more relevant events about the city need to be mentioned: a serious nuclear accident occurred in 1957 at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant near the city, which led to the region to be inaccessible to visitors until 1992; and a meteor struck in 2013. By then, however, Ekaterina has already left her hometown.

Alexandrova discovered the game during a holiday in Spain, when she was five years old; she went with her parents to the court, and she started playing. She immediately enjoyed it and improved rapidly. Throughout the years, she got better and better, but being based in Chelyabinsk is not ideal for those who aim to compete at a high level. Ekaterina moved first to Moscow and then to Prague with her father and coach, Evgeny Alexandrov, to devote herself to her game.

She shared her story during two interviews in 2016 and 2017: “I used to train in Moscow, but once my whole family and I came to a tournament in Prague, and we immediately loved the place in all respects; there were many courts, and it’s also a beautiful city. We were simply charmed, and we decided to move to Czechia.” When the journalist asked her how long she had lived in Prague, she replied: “I think we have been here for about ten years, maybe a little more.” Given that she didn’t specify when the move happened exactly, we suppose that it must have occurred in 2007, when Ekaterina was about 13-14 years old. However, in 2009 she played a junior tournament in Prague; if we consider that moment as a starting point, it means that she moved to Czechia when she was a little older.

Since she moved to Prague, she faced a very particular condition. She couldn’t be a player of national importance for the Czech federation because she’s not from there – in addition, she couldn’t attend any meeting or training organized by the federation. However, she could train and improve her skills in an environment characterised by a historically great tennis culture (especially for women in recent years), with many top players. She travelled to several European tournaments with father Evgeny, and, when not on the road, she also trained with local coaches, such as former world N.138 Petr Kralert.

Due to her unique national condition, in the early years Ekaterina couldn’t be awarded any wildcards for major tournaments. Therefore, she missed opportunities to play against high-level opponents. Nevertheless, she could play in the Czech Extraliga, the Czech club competition. All the local top players took part in the competition (Kvitova, Pliskova, Strycova, Siniakova, Vondrousova, etc), as well as some foreign players like Sevastova – the Latvian has been her clubmate since 2017 for the “RPM Oaza Ricany” team (Oaza Ricany is a town located about 13 miles from Prague).

Moreover, she benefited from another typical perk of Bohemian tennis: it is well-known that physical and technical training takes place on two surfaces, clay during the summer and fast indoor courts during the cold season. Alexandrova has always stated that she does not like very much playing on clay and that she prefers fast courts, which allow her to keep the rally under his control and reduce the defensive phase.

One more anomaly is that she skipped the junior career. In fact, in the early years of her career Alexandrova played a limited number of junior tournaments (only 20 official matches), deciding to focus on ITF tournaments. Her first appearance in the rankings was in 2012, at 17 (N.782), and from then onwards she has experienced a steady progression, with just a couple of stumbles. Here are her end-of-season rankings from 2012 onwards: 782, 380, 228, 234, 108, 69, 71, 35, 25 (at the end of 2020). During the first years on the ITF circuit, she won tournaments that are not particularly renowned, but in some of these, she played and beat well-known opponents such as Bacsinszky, Paszek, Muchova.

A big breakout occurred in the 2016 season. In June, she was ranked around the 230th spot in the WTA rankings and she was about to take the first step in the biggest events, since her ranking finally granted her the opportunity to play the Grand Slam qualifiers at Wimbledon. To be honest, she was the first alternate in the original entry list, but due to the withdrawal of one player in the entry list, there was a spot for her in the Roehampton draw (Wimbledon’s qualies are not played on the grasscourts of Church Road, to safeguard their conditions). In the first round, she won against Ons Jabeur (the Tunisian is the same age as Ekaterina), then in the second round she defeated Stephanie Vogt 6-4 4-6 14-12 after saving a match point at 11-12. Without a rest day, it would have been tough to play the deciding match, but the rain came to help her, and every scheduled game was postponed by a day. The match against the local player Harriet Dart turned into another marathon: 2-6, 7-5, 13-11. She won after saving another match point at 10-11. 

This was not the end of her dream run. Her match in the first round of the main draw was against Ana Ivanovic, N.25 in the rankings. It was Ana’s last year on the WTA Tour and she smarted from some wrist problems. Ekaterina, ranked 223rd, won the match against all odds, 6-2 7-5. She finally lost in the second round to Anna Lena Friedsam, but she earned 110 WTA points and roughly $76,000 in just one tournament, more than her total career prize money at that time. In November 2016, Alexandrova won the WTA125K at Limoges, defeating three French Top 100 players such as Parmentier, Cornet and Garcia. The Limoges tournament would then become her favourite, with two more titles in 2018 and 2019, further proof of how well she plays on indoor courts.

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World No.634 Laura Samson Reaches First WTA Quarter-Final At 16

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3 days ago

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24/07/2024

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Laura Samon - image via itftennis.com/ photo credi: Manuel Queimadelos

Laura Samson has become the first player born in 2008 to reach the quarter-finals of a WTA event after producing a surprise win on Tuesday. 

The 16-year-old wildcard stunned second seed Katerina Siniakova 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, in the second round at the Prague Open. Her triumph occurred a day after she dropped just two games against Tara Wurth in her opening match. This week is Samson’s Tour debut after playing 10 events on the lower-level ITF circuit. 

“I’m extremely surprised,” she said during her on-court interview after beating Siniakova. “I didn’t go into it as favorite. I’m so proud of myself and I hope I will continue to play like this. As I was going into the second set I thought, ‘I have nothing to lose, I didn’t play good in the first set.’ I’m not really sure when [I thought I could win], I just believed myself in the third set.” 

Samson is the latest Czech player to break through following a sucessful junior career. Last year she won the Wimbledon girls’ doubles title and was runner-up in the French Open singles tournament in June. She is currently No.3 in the ITF junior rankings but has been ranked as high as No.1. 

Earlier this year, Samson decided to change her name on the Tour by dropping the last three letters (ova). The reason why she did so was to avoid getting confused with another player. 

“I first noticed it last year, there was a problem that I was getting strings (the) of Lyudmila Samsonova,” she told tenisovysvet.cz.

“I also talked about it with her and, for example, according to the schedule, she also sometimes thought she was playing, but it was me,” 

“I would have liked the ending -ová, but unfortunately it turned out like this.”

The teenager will next take on world No.248 Oksana Selekhmeteva with the winner of that match progressing to their first WTA semi-final.  21-year-old Selekhmeteva is a former top 10 junior player who came through two rounds of qualifying to reach the main draw. She is a two-time junior Grand Slam champion in doubles. 

There are five seeds remaining in the tournament, including top seed Linda Nosková who will play Germany’s Ella Seidel in her next match. 

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Alex De Minaur Overcomes Injury To Fulfil Olympic Dream

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4 days ago

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23/07/2024

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ASlex de Minaur - Roland Garros 2022 (foto Roberto dell'Olivo)

Alex de Minaur says it is a ‘dream come true’ for him to represent Australia in the Olympic Games after missing the event three years ago.

The world No.6 had been in a race against time to be fit for the Olympic tennis event after suffering an agonising injury setback at Wimbledon earlier this month. At the All England Club de Minaur reached the quarter-final stage for the first time and was set to take on Novak Djokovic. However, he was forced to withdraw from the match after tearing the fibre cartilage in his hip region after suffering a ‘freak’ injury. At the time of the announcement, it was estimated that he would be sidelined from the Tour for three to six weeks. 

However, the 25-year-old appears to have recovered fairly quickly in time for Paris with the tennis tournament starting on Saturday. It will be de Minaur’s debut in the Olympics after he was forced to pull out of the Tokyo Games due to a positive COVID-19 test. 

“To finally be able to represent Australia in the Olympics is a dream come true,” he wrote on Instagram on Tuesday morning.

“I’m very passionate when I play for my country and wear the green and gold, so this is another one of those moments. 

“I’m extremely excited to lace up for Paris 2024.”

De Minaur is bidding to become the first male player from his country to win an Olympic medal in the singles event. He has already won two ATP titles this year in Alcapulco and s-Hertogenbosch. Since the start of January, he has won five out of 11 meetings against top 10 players. 

“It’s really great news – we’re actually expecting Alex to arrive in the village ahead of the official draw (on Thursday) and we know he’s been working with his rehab team quite extensively since the conclusion of Wimbledon,” Australian chef de mission Anna Meares told the Australian Associated Press (AAP).

“He’s hungry to be here, he wants to be a part of this team and we will offer as much support as we can in that process.

“He’s coming – we will wait to see that process. He still has time … injury can be a really stressful thing for an athlete and the more you rush it, the more problems you can potentially cause.

“We’re leaving it in the hands of Alex and his rehabilitation team … it will be a decision purely by them.” 

De Minaur is one of five Australian men playing in the Paris Olympics. The others are Alexei Popyrin, Matthew Ebden, John Peers and Rinky Hijikata. 

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Wrist Injury Threatening To End Holger Rune’s Olympic Dream

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5 days ago

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21/07/2024

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Holger Rune will have a second medical opinion on Monday before deciding if he is fit enough to play at the Olympic Games, according to his team. 

The Danish world No.17 recently retired from his quarter-final match at the Hamburg Open due to a knee injury. The hope at the time was that his withdrawal would be just a precautionary measure ahead of the Olympics. However, he is also dealing with a second issue that appears to be more serious.

According to TV 2 Sport, Rune has been struggling with a wrist issue and underwent a scan on Sunday which his mother Aneke says ‘doesn’t look promising.’ Aneke is also the manager of her son’s career. Rune’s Olympic dreams now rest on the outcome of a second medical expert that he will visit tomorrow who has a better understanding of the sport. 

“Unfortunately, it does not look promising after the first medical opinion after the review of the scan of the wrist,” Aneke Rune told TV 2 Sport.

“We are waiting for two tennis-specific doctors who will give a second opinion tomorrow (Monday). Tennis wrists look different from regular wrists, so we’ll hold out hope for one more day.” 

Rune is one of three Danish players entered into the Olympic tennis event along with Caroline Wozniacki and Clara Tauson. The country has only won one medal in tennis before which was at the 1912 Games when Sofie Castenschiold won silver in the women’s indoor singles event. 

So far this season, the 21-year-old has won 27 matches on the Tour but is yet to claim a title. He reached the final of the Brisbane International and then the semi-finals of three more events. In the Grand Slams, he made it to the fourth round of the French Open and Wimbledon. 

It is not known when a final decision regarding Rune’s participation in Paris will be made.

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