Marketa Vondrousova was born on June 28, 1999, in Sokolov, Czech Republic, to David Vondrous and Jindriska Anderlova, who played volleyball for SK Slavia Prague in the top-flight Extraliga. Vondrousova began to focus on tennis early.
As an eight-year-old, she started to train on Stvanice Island. Four years later, she won the Nike Junior Tour International Masters at the age of 12 before moving to Prague to train more regularly there. The Czech then went on to have a very successful junior career.
In singles, Vondrousova reached two junior semifinals at the French Open and one at Wimbledon. She also won two junior Grand Slam doubles titles at the Australian Open and French Open. Her first WTA Tour singles event came at the Prague Open, where she won her first match against Oceane Dodin before losing out to 2009 US Open champion Samantha Stosur.
A left elbow injury in May 2016 then ruled her out for the rest of the season. Vondrousova had a breakthrough at the Ladies Open Bel Bienne in 2017. She won the title as a qualifier, a run that included a victory against Karolina Pliskova. Vondrousova was ranked No. 233 at the time, making her the lowest-ranked WTA champion since Justine Henin in 2010.
After a mixed run of results in 2018, Vondrousova was the runner-up at the Hungarian Ladies Open in February 2019 and the Istanbul Cup in April 2019. However, it was at the 2019 French Open that she became known worldwide. Incredibly, the Czech reached the final at Roland-Garros without dropping a set.
She defeated Wang Yafan, Anastasia Potapova, Carla Suarez Navarro, Anastasija Sevastova, Petra Martic, and Johanna Konta, implementing her brand of crafty tennis to perfection. Ashleigh Barty proved to be too strong in the final, and Vondrousova finished as the runner-up. She was the first teenager to make the French Open final since 2007 and the first to play in any Grand Slam final since 2009.
Vondrousova did not make another final for two years after that shocking run, having struggles with form and confidence. But she then came back into the limelight in July 2021 at the Olympic Games. After a hard-fought opening-round win against Kiki Bertens, Vondrousova did not lose another set on her way to the final.
This included triumphs against Naomi Osaka and Elina Svitolina. Unfortunately, she lost a tight and exciting three-set battle in the final against Belinda Bencic. Once again, no more finals followed for the next two years for the Czech. This was until she took the next step with an extraordinary run at the 2023 Wimbledon Championships.
Vondrousova won her first three contests in straight sets, beating 12th seed Veronika Kudermetova along the way. A tough three-set match followed against her compatriot Marie Bouzkova, but she came through it to reach the quarterfinal. The Czech rallied from 4-1 down in the third set to beat Jessica Pegula in the quarterfinal.
A much more comfortable triumph in the semifinal against Elina Svitolina took her into a second Grand Slam final, where she faced Ons Jabeur. Vondrousova was too good for the Tunisian and claimed the Wimbledon title with a 6-4 6-4 victory.
It made her the lowest-ranked player in the Open Era to win Wimbledon, having been No. 42 in the world before the tournament started. She reached the quarterfinal of the US Open in the same year, and her crafty and varied style of tennis continues to entertain tennis fans around the world.
