Barbora Krejcikova has carved her own special place in the history books with her brilliant run to the title at the Dubai Championships last week.
The 2021 French Open champion became only the fifth player in history to beat the World No. 1, 2 and 3 at the very same event. Only the Williams sisters, Steffi Graf, and current tour rival Aryna Sabalenka have ever achieved the same feat.
It's a huge privilege. It's a big achievement and I think it's going to give me a lot of confidence that I can play with the best ones.
Even more impressively, these three victories came in successive matches for the Czech. She defeated World No.2 Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals, No.3 Jessica Pegula in the semi-finals, before toppling runaway World No.1 Iga Swiatek in the final.
All this, on top of a maiden 1000 title for the Grand Slam champion, means that the year ahead is looking very exciting for Krejcikova.
With the clay-court swing just around the corner, and the Czech player being most accomplished on this surface, the next few months will be fascinating. Krejcikova has proved she is a thorn in the side of Iga Swiatek, having now beaten her twice in a row - both in finals, and both convincingly so.
I love challenges. When there is somebody that is really tough, I just love to go out there and see where I am, if I can beat this player, if I cannot beat this player. It just gives me extra, extra push. When you play with Iga, you have to suffer, otherwise you're not going to win because she's everywhere. She plays great shots. She likes to play long rallies. So you have to suffer. I don't mind that.
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