Rebecca Šramková lived the season of her life. She started the year in the second hundred of the ranking, and ended it in the elite fifty.
Športweb 14.12.2024 21:41
Photo: IG Rebecca Šramková
Tennis player of the year 2024 Rebecca Šramková.
The 28-year-old woman from Bratislava won her first title on the WTA circuit last season in Hua Hin, Thailand. She advanced to the finals at the events in Monastir, Tunisia, and Jiangxi, China.
Thanks to the successful second half of the season, she worked her way into the world’s top 50. She is currently ranked 46th in the WTA rankings.
At the end of the season, she confirmed her great form at the final tournament of the Billie-Jean King Cup, where she won three out of four singles matches as a team unit and helped Slovakia advance to the sensational final.
Probably few people were surprised when her name was mentioned in the category of the best tennis player of 2024. However, in addition to the traditional formulas, she surprised the hall at the NTC in Bratislava with words addressed to her own parents.
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“I really liked how Mia Pohánková’s parents cried at her successes,” she said to the sixteen-year-old Slovak tennis talent.
“My parents will definitely not cry for me. Don’t you want someone to adopt me?” Šramková joked ironically. But there was no laughter.
A few seconds of awkward silence followed between the guests, and the otherwise always ready moderator Slavo Jurko lost his speech for a while.
Šramková’s words struck a chord. It is known that he does not have an ideal relationship with his father Jozef. The reason, according to Jozef Šramka, is the tennis player’s former relationship with the coach of speed canoeists Peter Likér.
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“It’s hard for a person to watch how someone country-ed her. It should be avoided. We warned her about the risks for nothing,” said the father of the tennis player of the year 2024 in the past.
He stood by her throughout her junior career, but when Šramková was eighteen, her father threw her out of the house and cut off contact with her.
“I had to stand on my own two feet. Without a single cent, it’s a miracle that I managed to do it. My father counted on the fact that I wouldn’t be able to do it, I’d come back and beg.
That’s when I made sure that I love tennis and will stay with it, even if I had to die of hunger,” Rebecca Šramková described her family circumstances some time ago.