5 things you didn’t know about French Open Finalist Lucie Šafářová

Lucie Šafářová reached her first Grand Slam final when she defeated former winner Ana Ivanovic 7-5, 7-5 in an error-ridden French Open Semi-Final.

The 13th seeded Czech will play top-seeded American, Serena Williams in Saturday’s Roland Garros Final.

Ana Ivanovic got off to a good start in the opening set by breaking Šafářová and also by serving well to race off to a 4-1 lead. But, she started getting tentative and complacent and the Serbian squandered a 5-2 lead to let Šafářová clinch the first set 7-5.

The second-set was completely ridden with errors from the players as Šafářová blew various opportunities to wrap up the proceedings and allowed Ivanovic to claw her way back. But the Czech eventually showed some grit in the 12th game of the second set to serve out the game to set-up a fascinating encounter with top-seeded Serena Williams.

The 28-year-old had never really drawn much attention among the Tennis fans and there are some interesting things that definitely make you more aware of Lucie Šafářová.

Here we present you the 5 things you probably didn’t know about Šafářová.

1. We’ve all been pronouncing her name really wrong!

We would definitely go about pronouncing it as “Sa-fa-ro-va”. But wait, she is a Czech native!

The actual pronunciation is, “Shu-fa-zha-va”.

Well, that’ll take some time to get used to.

2. She’s in the Women’s Doubles Final too!

This tournament could turn out to be the ultimate dream for Šafářová as she has made it into both the Singles and Doubles Finals. In fact, Šafářová’s one and only Grand Slam trophy is the Women’s Doubles trophy which she won at the Australian Open this year. She is aiming to win her second consecutive Grand Slam trophy with her American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

“Singles is the priority, but I really enjoy doubles,” Šafářová said.

  3. Šafářová and Andrea Hlaváčková are childhood friends.

A fellow Czech and a Doubles specialist, Andrea Hlaváčková has been in the Doubles Circuit for quite a while. The former Doubles partners have apparently known each other for a really long time.

  4. If she wasn’t playing Tennis, then….

Šafářová claims that she is quite interested in Physiotherapy and Psychology.

5. She dated fellow Czech tennis player Tomáš Berdych for 9 years.

There was lot of speculation after Šafářová’s break-up with Tomáš Berdych, as Czech tabloids had fun narrating on how the two would divide the price of the house they lived in together based on prize money earned by each player.

While she admits the split was difficult, she acknowledges that it changed her perspective on her life and her career for the better. “I discovered more of myself which was great,” she explained.