First things first: Barbora Strycova is not retiring any time soon. Well, certainly not in the next few days, at least.
Having beaten Johanna Konta 7-6 (5), 6-1 to reach her first Wimbledon semi-final, the 33-year-old just wanted to make it clear that she had only been “thinking” about retiring earlier this year. Nothing had been decided. And anyway, she had other things on her mind at the minute – that semi-final with Serena Williams for one.
After a slow-ish start, Strycova played brilliantly to dismantle Konta and her power game, slicing and dicing her way to a 97-minute win. She had targeted Wimbledon as her main goal this year and she had now exceeded her wildest dreams. Then again, that dream had been 31 years in the making.
“I was two years old when my grandpa took me to the [Wimbledon] museum,” Strycova recalled. “I saw the trophy. I was like, I'm going to play here. Right now here I'm 33, which is incredible. It's a great story.
“My grandparents were living here for four years. I was coming here very often. London is my favourite city, so it's nice.”
It was enough to beat Konta on Tuesday; who knows how far that philosophy can take her from here.
As for the match that got her to that semi-final, it had not been easy at the start but once she was off and running, the Czech was in top gear until the very last ball. In only her third match on Centre Court over the course of a long and eventful career, there were no match-closing nerves that dog so many other contenders. Barbora was having a blast.
“To be honest, when I step on the court, you hear everything, like a pin drop,” she said of playing in the tennis cathedral. “I was nervous. I was kind of like, Wow, I'm here, I'm playing quarters against an English girl. I was feeling the nerves.
“But when I was 4-1 down, I wasn't playing bad, but I didn't really play the way I wanted. But then I hold the serve, which was really important for me. Then I start moving better. So it helped me to break her.
“Then I kind of, like, build the confidence. It helped me to win the first set, obviously. Then when I had 5-1 up, I was really calm in my head. I was just in the zone, I can say. I wasn't really nervous, which is strange. But I think it's good!”
Whether she will be nervous against Serena she will only know on Thursday. With only one previous Grand Slam quarter-final finish on her record (it was here in 2014), Strycova has no experience of playing at the business end of major championships.
And now she has to face arguably the greatest player the game has ever seen and do it on a court that Serena has pretty much owned since 2002 (seven titles for the American is not a bad haul in that spell). No matter, the semi-final debutante is unflustered by this thought.
“I don't have fear,” she said. “I just will go there Thursday and I will try to play my game. Of course, I don't have such a power like Serena, but I have another weapons. I will try to use them as much as I can. I will enjoy. I have really at this point nothing to lose.
“I will just go there and fight every point I can.”
