Before Saturday’s final in Prague, there was a special ceremony for Lucie Safarova 😭😭😭. Kudos to the tournament for streaming the ceremony live on their Instagram page. The WTA TV stream then kicked in towards the end of the ceremony. I wish they’d been able to stream it from the start because it was on the schedule!
I was glad that Lucie got her moment in front of her home fans and it was emotional. They put up some nice videos from her career and messages from WTA players including Barbora Strycova, Petra Kvitova, Simona Halep, Angelique Kerber, Agnieszka Radwanska (!), Svetlana Kuznetsova, Kim Clijsters and Martina Navratilova. There was also a message from former coach, Rob Steckley, who ended with “listen… first serve in” 😂. Finally, they had some words from a tearful, Bethanie Mattek-Sands (#TeamLucieForever). I’m hoping the WTA will share the video at some point but I found a speedy version on YouTube if you missed the ceremony HERE.
Lucie returned to do the coin toss for the singles final. It was reported earlier in the week that Lucie had decided she was not ready for singles and hadn’t want to take the wild card opportunity away from Karolina Muchova (see translated tweet by Diego Barbiani on Twitter). Rather fittingly, Muchova reached her first WTA-level final this week, just coming up short against Jill Teichmann in a three set finale.
I have so many fond memories from following Lucie’s career over the past five years. I’ve put together a post of my favourite fan moments and pictures which I will share soon on the blog. We’ll have to wait and see whether Lucie gets the wild card to play the French Open…
Moo's Tennis Blog 