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Nicole Vaidišová
Nicole Vaidišová (born April 23, 1989 in Nürnberg,
Germany) is a Czech female tennis player.
Vaidišová is an emerging star in women's tennis
who has been playing since age 6. She is a student of Nick Bollettieri and
is said to consider her serve her biggest weapon.
Career
Review
Vaidišová
debuted on the ITF Circuit in 2003 by reaching three consecutive finals:
won $10K ITF/Plzen-CZE, her only event in 2003, without dropping a set.
In
2004, she finished the season as a top 100 player; as a qualifier at only
third Tour main draw at inaugural Vancouver, defeated four of Top 5 seeds
(including No.4-seeded world No.82 Laura Granville to become sixth-youngest
singles champion in Tour history (aged 15 years, three months, 23 days) and
the lowest-ranked player (No.180) and second qualifier (of three) to win
a title in 2004. She won her second title of year as No.103 at Tashkent
(she beat No.80 Virginie Razzano in 3 sets in the final. On October 18, she
made her Top 100 debut at No.74 (also became youngest player in Top 100);
debuted on WTA Rankings on March 1 and in the same week, she reached the
quarterfinals at Acapulco
in Tour debut and only fourth pro event (l. to Pennetta); gained entry into
Acapulco after reaching final at $75,000 ITF/Midland, MI-USA and winner Craybas
turned down 'feed up' entry into the Tour event.
Later
in the season, she reached the quarterfinals at Tokyo
[Japan Open] (defeating No.29 Tatiana
Golovin in 3 sets en route
for her career-best win, before losing to Klara Koukalova. She made Grand
Slam debut at the US
Open losing to defending
champion and world No.1 Justine
Henin-Hardenne 6/1 6/4 in
the first round after leading 4-1 second set. She won ITF/Columbus, OH-USA
at the start of the season and reached her then career-high No.72 singles
ranking on November 1.
Despite
being only 14 years old she finished the year with two WTA
titles and a win-loss record of 31-8.
2005
In
early January, she reached her first quartfinals of the season in Hobart
defeating on her way Perebiynis and No.7 seed Dinara
Safina before suffering loss
to No.3 seed Iveta
Benesova. She picked up her
first Grand Slam singles victory in her Australian
Open debut by reaching the
third round with victories against Maria
Vento-Kabchi and Jelena
Kostanic before falling to
top seed Lindsay
Davenport. Following the
tournament, she jumped in the ranking from No.70 to No.57.
In
February, as No.7 seed at Memphis,
she reached her third career semifinal by defeating Lindsay Lee-Waters, Kristina
Brandi and Jamea Jackson before falling to No.3 seed Meghann
Shaughnessy in a pair of
tie-breaks.
In
March, she reached the third round at Indian
Wells by defeating Mashona
Washington and No.11 seed Karolina
Sprem before losing in straight
sets No.20 seed Mary
Pierce. She also made it
to third round at Miami
with victories against Katarina
Srebotnik and No.18 seed
Jelena Jankovic before her straight sets loss to Anna
Ivanovic.
In
April,4 at the Family Circle Cup she made her top 50 debut at No.47 and reached
her first career Tier I quarterfinals at Charleston,
saving two match points in first round victory against qualifier Shahar Peer.
She then posted her first top 10 victory, and first win over a top-10 player,
over No.3 seed Russian French
Open champion Anastasia
Myskina before also defeating
No.14 seed Shinobu
Asagoe in three sets. She
then fell to No.8 seed Patty
Schnyder in the quarterfinals
and yet made her top 40 debut at No.34 on April 18.
In
May, she reached her first Tier III final as No.2 seed at Istanbul,
losing to top seed Venus
Williams in championship
match thanks to victories over qualifier Abramovic, No.5 seed Anna-Lena Groenefeld
and No.3 seed Anna Smashnova to reach the final.She made her debut at Roland
Garros, defeating Safarova
in the first round before falling in No.22 seed Francesca
Schiavone in the next round.)
In
June, she won her first career match on grass at Birmingham,
defeating qualifier Stépahnie Cohen-Aloro in the first round before
falling to Eleni Daniilidou in the next round. She made her Top 30 debut
on June 13 at No.30. At Eastbourne,
she fell to No.5 seed Vera
Zvonareva in the first round
and participated at Wimbledon for the first time of her career as No.27 seed,
defeating Jelena Kostanic in the first round and also Pastikova before losing
to No.5 seed Svetlana
Kuznetsova in round three.
In
July, she set a new career-high ranking at No.28 on July, 4. She went 2-0
in singles play, but lost the decisive doubles rubber (w/Kveta Pescke) in
Czech
Republic's 3-2 loss to Italy
in Fed
Cup World Group I Playoffs.
In
August, she reached her first career Tier I quarterfinal at Toronto,
defeating on her way lucky loser Shenai Perry, No.10 seed Nathalie
Dechy and lucky loser Sromova
before losing to No.4 seed Justine
Henin-Hardenne. She continued
to improve her ranking, this time jumping from No.32 to No.27 on August 22.
In
September, as No.26 seed at the 2005
US Open, she reached the
fourth round for the first time at a Grand Slam event, defeating Kveta Peschke,
Jie Zheng and qualifier Lisjak before falling to No.9 seed Nadia
Petrova. In that match, against
Petrova, Nicole blew a 5-0 lead. Petrova then won 6 games in a row, and pushed
a tie-break, which Vaidisova lost. In the second set, Vaidisova again had
a large lead, before Petrova came firing back, eventually beating the youngster
7-6, 7-5. After the match, Vaidisova hit a forehand
into the crowd out of frustration, nearly hitting someone. A commentator
later remarked, "That's the best forehand she's hit in a while."
She
improved her ranking after the US Open from No.28 to a career-high No.23
on September 12. She captured her first title of 2005 (and third of career)
as No.2 seed at Seoul,
defeating top seed Jelena Jankovic in the final (7/5 6/3) without dropping
a set during the week, which included victories vs. lucky loser Laine, Akiko
Morigami, No.8 seed Marion Bartoli and Catalina Castano. She moved to career-best
No.21 on October 3.
In
Octobre, she captured her second straight Tour singles title (and fourth
of career) as No.2 seed at Tokyo
[Japan Open], winning when No.3 seed Tatiana
Golovin retired while trailing
7/6(4) 3-2 due to a left achilles tendonitis in the final. On October 10,
she made her Top 20 debut at No.18 and extended her winning streak to 15
matches by winning her third consecutive Tour singles title and fifth of
her career (as No.2 seed, she beat No.6 seed Conchita
Martinez and No.3 seed Gisela
Dulko en route to final, then overcame a 4-2 third-set deficit to defeat
Russian top seed Nadia
Petrova 6/1 6/7(5) 7/5 in
the final.
With
the Seoul,
Tokyo
[Japan Open] and Bangkok
titles, Nicole Vaidisova became the first player since Lindsay
Davenport in 2004 to win
three titles in three weeks (the American won at Stanford,
Los
Angeles and San
Diego) and also became the
sixth woman to win five Tour singles titles before her 17th birthday (after
Tracy
Austin, Jaeger,
Monica
Seles, Jennifer
Capriati and Martina
Hingis). On October 17, she
improved her ranking from No.18 to No.17, a new career-high.
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