Who is Karolina Muchova? Meet the Czech tennis player who shocked Aryna Sabalenka at the French Open
Twelve months ago, Karolina Muchova would have been content with a third-round showing at the 2023 French Open. The Czech, who was on a comeback from a long injury hiatus, had after all beaten Maria Sakkari on the big stage.
The stage was even bigger on Thursday, June 8, and her opponent, Aryna Sabalenka, even more menacing. None of it, however, seemed to faze Muchova. She knew she belonged at the top and her belief showed in her titanic win over Sabalenka on Court Philippe-Chatrier. This saw the Czech make her first Grand Slam final at Roland Garros.
Massive as it is, the win over Sabalenka — her first at Grand Slams this year — is not Muchova's only claim to fame. She has been around the tour, quietly going about her business for the last few years now.
Given her recent exploits, here's a look at the Czech's early years and her career trajectory.
Karolina Muchova, picking the right ball
Born in the historic, if somewhat sparsely populated, city of Olomouc in the Czech Republic to Josef and Hana Muchova, Karolina picked up tennis at the age of seven.
Introduced to the sport by her father, she would accompany her brother to courts not far from her home. The youngster had a keen interest in sports and also played handball during her formative years. Aged 12, however, she decided to make a future in tennis — ditching handball in the process.
Coming from a city of only around 102,000 inhabitants, the infrastructure wasn't always up to the mark. It was then that Muchova shifted base to Prague — hoping to one day join the legion of Czech tennis legends like Martina Navratilova and Jana Novotna.
Muchova's creative mind admittedly translated into her game, with the youngster developing a crafty all-court game that she based off, in bits, Roger Federer's. It was hardly surprising when she repeated some of the same in her press conference after the quarterfinal win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenckova:
"When I was really young, you would still find me going to the net and playing dropshots. So it was, I would say, always there. Of course then later when I was a little older I was looking up to Roger Federer," she said.
A tale of two careers, then more
Karolina Muchova made her senior debut at the age of 17 on the ITF tour in 2013, but a breakthrough did not come immediately. She toiled on the lower rungs for years before making her WTA tour debut at the 2017 Korea Open.
A year later, the Czech gave the world a first look at her true potential. Having come through qualifying, she reached the second round at the US Open. In her Major debut, Muchova then found herself up against a Grand Slam champion in the form of Garbine Muguruza. She won in three tantalizing sets.
"It's unreal, it's perfect. I can't be better," Muchova had said at the time.
Naively, Muchova said she could not do better. The Olomouc-born player went on prove herself wrong on multiple occasions over the next year or so — having her breakthrough in 2019 with a Wimbledon quarterfinal and top-30 debut.
Muchova was on the rise when COVID-19 hit and halted everything. Slow to come back after the tour's restart, she seemed to fade away into oblivion.
That, however, changed in 2021 when she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open and followed it up with a second Wimbledon quarterfinal. She broke into the top-20 but as fate would have it, tragedy hit her again — in the form of a slew of injuries this time.
Muchova only played intermittently between late 2021 to mid 2022, but the hunger to return was always there. Her commitment to fitness saw her get back in shape at the back end of last year.
What lies ahead for Karolina Muchova?
Come 2023, the Czech was back to winning a lot of matches. Despite these victories coming mostly at smaller tournaments, the momentum was slowly building and it all led up to the French Open.
Coming into the tournament, Karolina Muchova had posted a solid run in Rome. Up against Maria Sakkari, who she had beaten at the same venue last year in the first round, the Czech's all-court game shone throughout the near-two-hour duration of the match. And she has only gotten better with each round.
A quote from Muchova's last press conference doubles as a beautiful metaphor for her game. On being asked if she plays the guitar, Muchova said she knew a handful of chords and that meant she could just about any song well enough.
"I can play a few chords," she said. "You know, with guitar, if you know, I don't know, five to seven chords you can play almost all the songs."
Akin to her skills on the guitar, Muchova has mastered the basics of the game as well. When out on the tennis court, she can play at least six to seven different shots from just about anywhere on the court. That, on most days, is good enough to beat any opponent.
There's a chance that Muchova may play World No. 1 and two-time former French Open champion Iga Swiatek in the final. Whether she can make Swiatek dance to her tunes as she has with most opponents over the last fortnight remains to be seen.