Lucie Safarova: daughter Lea is here!
Former French Open finalist Lucie Safarova announced the birth of her first daughter two days ago.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Dec 22, 2019, 11:13 am
"I woke up this morning as a mom ... this feeling doesn't work. Welcome to our family, Lea," Safarova wrote on Instagram.
The Czech had ended her career at this year's French Open. In a tennisnet interview on the verge of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix this spring, Safarova had said that she wanted to quit because of her many illnesses - later it became known that she already had her double appearance in Stuttgart (where she had reached the final) was pregnant.
Safarova’s life partner is the Czech hockey player Tomas Plekanec, who already has two children from a previous relationship.
Safarova: 5 Grand Slam titles in doubles
The now 32-year-old Safarova had won seven individual tournaments during her tennis career and made it to 5th place in the WTA ranking. In 2015 she was in the final of the French Open, where she lost to Serena Williams in three sets. In doubles, she won five Grand Slam tournaments, all with Bethanie Mattek-Sands ("Team Bucie"), and to number 1 in the world. Her last encounter was alongside Dominika Cubulkova in the double competition in Paris. In retrospect, this was also the last match of her career for Cibulkova - the Slovakian recently announced the end of her career. She is pregnant too.
After her greatest success in singles with the 2015 Paris Final, Safarova's illness-related absences had increased, she slipped accordingly in the world rankings and could no longer build on her previous successes. "Then I came back several times, but that is hard. And the older you get, the more difficult it becomes when you have to start from scratch. At some point I felt that it was getting too much and that I could not get my 100 Percent will come, "she said in April. "I wanted to stop with a smile - and not be passed through in the ranking and say goodbye with bad memories."