The Wimbledon 2023 women’s tournament saw a surprising victory: the Czech Marketa Vondrousova, number 42 in the world, beat the great favorite Ons Jabeur and conquered the Wimbledon title.
The Tunisian tennis player had beaten almost all the big names in the tournament and seemed to be the clear favorite, but in the end emotions got the upper hand once again, Ons offered an opaque performance and Marketa triumphed with a double 6-4.
At the press conference, the Czech girl explained and recounted her sensations: “What I’m experiencing is incredible, I never expected it. It was a very tough challenge and I was very nervous. I’m grateful and proud of myself, at the end match I had relief because in the last points I could hardly breathe.
In the final phase of the match all the pressure and all eyes were on me, but I’m happy that I managed to keep my nerves at bay. It was a great challenge, different long changes, Ons is a girl as well as a fantastic woman, we know each other very well and it was hard to face her.”
New Wimbledon Queen Marketa Vondrousova: “I never dreamed of winning”
“New tattoo? I think I’ll choose it together with the coach and maybe we’ll get the same tattoo. On the other hand, we talked about it and he said to me, only when you win a Grand Slam, and it finally happened. Let’s hope he won’t back down now!
The roof closed? They told us this morning, and I honestly think it was better for me. But I didn’t think about it, I just did my usual routine with training, food and then the match. The roof helps when serving and you don’t have to deal with the problem of the wind, I’m used to playing indoors, in winter I train indoors in Prague and honestly I’ve always done well.
All this however is great, here I have my husband while my little sister came on Friday. They all came here for me and it was amazing. Injury from last year? Last year I was a tourist here, I had come to see a friend of mine and honestly not even when I got back I didn’t know what would happen.
This victory is incredible, I’ve always considered this to be the hardest Grand Slam to win and now I’ve succeeded. I started the tournament just thinking about winning a few matches and then this happened. This is crazy.”
Finally, some words about her husband, who was very silent both during and after the match: “He’s always like this. When I got to the box to cheer, he cried. We met later, and even then she cried a lot. In the eight years that I’ve known him, it was the first time it happened to me, that’s how he is.”