A 27-year-old female tennis player who is barely able to see in her left eye has become the first woman to crack the world’s top 100.
Rebecca Shramkova (Slovakia/World No. 120) will enter the top 100 when the world rankings are released next week after a stellar run at the WTA 1000 Italian Open, where she qualified and reached the round of 16. Shramkova, whose previous career-high ranking was 111, is ranked 87 in the live rankings. Shramkova lost 6-4 4-6 6-7(3) to Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) in the round of 16, but had a great week with wins over Katie Bolter (Great Britain) and Sofia Kenin (USA).
A top-100 ranking at age 27 is nothing special in the world of women’s tennis, but when you realize the path Shramkova has taken since then, you realize it’s something special. The WTA presents an interview with Shramkova, in which she reflects on her life.
She was born blind in her left eye. That, of course, was the reason she started playing tennis. She hoped that playing tennis, which requires a high level of perception and hand-eye coordination, would improve her vision. Unfortunately, her vision didn’t improve, but her grades did.
In 2012, she turned professional at the age of 15 and played her first WTA Tour qualifier (Nottingham) at the age of 18. She broke the top 200 at age 19 and made her first Grand Slam main draw at the 2017 Australian Open at age 20. She also won her first WTA main draw title in Gstaad that year, reaching a career-high ranking of 111th in the world.
While she was on a roll on the tour, Shramkovaia has been plagued by a series of injuries since 2017. First, she suffered a back injury that kept her off the tour for nearly a year.
“Then I suffered injuries to my shoulder and abs. Just when I was able to play well after rehabilitation, the next thing I knew I had a stress fracture in my leg. That was two years ago 토토 and I had surgery at 22. The bone split into three and two of them were removed. It took me another three months to get back in shape.”
His goal is to “stay healthy for longer. His ranking, which once dropped to 388th (9/26/22), broke the 200 mark again in July last year and has been on the rise ever since. That same month, she reached her first tour quarterfinal at the WTA 250 BNP Paribas Warsaw, defeating Karolina Muhova (CZE).
What sustains Shramkova, who is blind in her left eye and has been plagued by injuries? “I want to be a great athlete,” she replies.
“I want to be a great player, and if the kids around me see me fighting to be a great player, they will want to be like that too. That’s what drives me to play.”
It will be interesting to see how Shramkova continues to overcome her challenges.
