Marketa Vondrousova recently shared some happy news. The WTA star is in a new relationship after splitting from her husband.
It has been a challenging season for Vondrousova. She became a worldwide name last year, but form and injury issues have prevented the Czech from building on her significant success in 2023.
Her most memorable moment from 2023 by far was an unexpected run to the Wimbledon title. She defeated players like Jessica Pegula, Elina Svitolina, and Ons Jabeur to triumph at SW19.
Interestingly, Vondrousova's fiance at the time did not attend the tournament. He stayed in the Czech Republic to mind the cat the two of them shared and watched her success on television instead.
Vondrousova also reached the US Open quarterfinal and qualified for the WTA Finals during her superb 2023 season. She probably hoped for similar or even more success in 2024.
However, 2024 has not worked out as she would have hoped. The 25-year-old did reach the French Open quarterfinal, but that was an outlier in a most difficult opening few months of the season for Vondrousova.
Things got even worse during her Wimbledon title defense. In the opening round, Vondrousova was crushed 4-6, 2-6 by Jessica Bouzas Maneiro. Although the Spaniard deserves credit for a solid performance, the Czech played an awful match by her standards.
Any hopes of responding swiftly to the setback were derailed by a shoulder injury, which was bothering Vondrousova more during her Wimbledon defeat than fans and analysts realized at the time.
A few days before the US Open began, Vondrousova announced that she had undergone shoulder surgery for that troublesome issue. The Czech did not return before the end of the 2024 season.
That means it has been over four months since Vondrousova competed on the WTA Tour. But she revealed happier news that she had started a new relationship since splitting with her ex-husband.
Vondrousova married Stepan Simek in July 2022, but the Wimbledon champion filed for divorce in April 2024, saying the relationship was not as they imagined. Simek moved out with the cat afterward.
"My marriage with Stepan ended a few weeks ago; we broke up. He moved out with the cat. It just didn't work out for us. It wasn't what we both imagined, so we agreed not to be together anymore. Now we are formally resolving the divorce, but we have agreed on everything."
The 25-year-old has now revealed she is in a new relationship with Andrew Paulson, who is an ATP player, currently ranked 496th in the world. To mark the occasion, Vondrousova shared multiple pictures of the pair on her boyfriend's birthday.
Hopefully, that development helped Vondrousova deal with her current injury. It is currently unknown when the former world No. 6 is most likely to return to professional tennis in 2025. Her fans will hope it is soon.
Vondrousova is not the only Czech player managing an injury. Karolina Muchova withdrew from the Billie Jean King Cup Finals because of a wrist injury she sustained during the Ningbo Open semifinal against Daria Kasatkina.