She turns 41 in July, and she fell off the tour more than a year ago. So we thought Kveta Peschke was done.
But nooooo.
Ably assisted by the magic doggie, the Czech native (who lives in Sarasota, Fla.) was on the practice court in Charleston a few weeks ago with Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany.
Didn’t have a chance to ask her – it was a busy Bouchard week – but thought maybe she was doing some coaching. Husband/coach Torsten has worked for several years with Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski, among others.
Turns out she was getting ready for a comeback.
Peschke’s last tournament was Dubai in February of 2015, where she and partner Shuai Peng lost their first match.
This week in Stuttgart, she and Groenefeld are in the semi-finals after a pair of routine straight-sets wins; they face No. 2 seeds Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in the semi-finals Saturday night. (Update: they lost in a match tiebreak)
Peschke formed a great partnership with Katarina Srebotnik for many years; they won the 2011 Wimbledon doubles title together and after that, the Czech held the No. 1 doubles ranking. In all, she has one singles title (nearly 20 years ag0!) and 27 in doubles.
She and Groenefeld (who of late has teamed up with Coco Vandeweghe, after doing well with Julia Goerges before that) are old pals, though; they played together for a little over two years and won the 2014 Paris Indoors. They also reached the finals in both Cincinnati and the Rogers Cup in 2013 as well as the semis of Wimbledon.
Reports are that she had knee surgery, which is a tough one at any age, never mind her age. Peschke had a pair of knee surgeries eons ago when she was quite a good singles player (she reached a career best of No. 26 in 2005). She missed all of 2003 and returned in April, 2004; her last tournament in singles was the 2007 French Open, where she defeated No. 11 seed Nadia Petrova in the first round after coming out of the qualifying.
Hopefully this is just the first tournament of many. We credit her doggie.
About Post Author
