Lucie Havlíčková stood at the absolute top of junior tennis two years ago. She was world number one, holding one singles and two doubles Grand Slam titles. She received the award for the best junior player of the year and made plans for a quick and smooth transition to the adult elite.
The two consecutive Czech junior Roland Garros champions from 2021 and 2022 are managing the journey to the adults very differently so far.
Nineteen-year-old Linda Nosková is already ranked 31st in the world and is a Grand Slam quarterfinalist from Melbourne, where she shocked the entire tennis world and defeated world number one Iga Šwiateková from Poland.
Lucie Havlíčková, who is four months younger, is currently on a more thorny path, on the ranking she is in the fourth hundred of the ranking, although according to the established plans she wanted to be among the top 150 tennis players on the planet at the end of last season.
In recent weeks, however, he has once again been making his undeniable talent known. During April, she reached the finals of ITF tournaments twice in Italy.
In the latter case, she raved about the way she handled a marathon thriller that only happens once in a while in the world of tennis.
In the quarter-finals of the event in Santa Margherita di Pula, she toiled on the court for four hours and three minutes against Finnish Laura Hietaranta.
Although she won the first set 6:2, it was already clear at that moment that it could be an exceptional duel. Only the first five games of the match took the players forty minutes.
In the second set, Havlíčková already led 4:2, but Finka was able to take the set to a tie-break. In it, the Czech tennis player overcame a 2:6 loss, but still fell and didn’t start well in the deciding act. She was already losing 2:4, in the tenth game she was two balls away from elimination.
At the last moment, however, she fought for a comeback and ended her heroic performance with a well-managed tie-break.
Havlíčková then reached the final, but did not enter it due to groin problems, which were the logical outcome of the frantic program.
In the rankings, the player, whose coach is former player Lukáš Dlouhý, still managed to move up dozens of places and now the number 328 lights up next to her name.
The native of Prague will face hard work in the following period to get closer to her goal, which is the Grand Slam qualifications. Last year, she already had two chances, she reached the qualifying matches at Wimbledon and the US Open, but in both cases she played only one match.
