Vondrousova happy to fly under the radar

"People are recognizing [me] more even in the city and everything," she said last summer at the first tournament she played after her grass-court coronation. "For me, I don't like these kinds of things, to be seen this much."

But Vondrousova will step firmly into the spotlight come Tuesday at Roland-Garros, as the world No.6 is the next player who hopes to stop the buzz saw that is Iga Swiatek, the top seed and two-time defending champion. The world No.1 has won her last 18 matches in Paris and has never lost to Vondrousova.

“Obviously, she's feeling great here … so I expect a tough match,” Vondrousova said on Sunday. “I'm in a position [where] I have nothing to lose, so I'm just going to go and try to enjoy the match and just try to maybe play a good match.”

The quarter-final between the two will be the first match between reigning Grand Slam champions in Paris since the 2013 final between Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. A win for the Czech, admittedly, would be a surprise: Vondrousova has never won a set against Swiatek in their three previous meetings, including a 6-1, 6-2 rout in the Roland-Garros first round in 2020 on the Pole’s road to her first major title. 

“I think she's a great example for all of us,” Vondrousova said earlier this spring, joking with reporters at the swing-opening event in Stuttgart that the prospect of facing Swiatek on clay is “very scary.” 

But the Czech has matched Swiatek in one achievement this clay-court season: beating Aryna Sabalenka. She did that in the quarter-finals in Stuttgart.

The 24-year-old from Sokolov is used to delivering unexpectedly in Paris … and elsewhere. Five years ago, the left-hander, then just 19 years old and unseeded again, became the youngest woman in 10 years to reach a Grand Slam singles final when she played for the title at Roland-Garros, where she was beaten by Ash Barty.

Injuries, including two surgeries on her wrist, took her out for chunks of time over the next four years, but never fully prevented her from reaching big milestones: in addition to winning at SW19 last summer, she also won the silver medal at the last Olympics in Tokyo.

And repeatedly delivering on the game's grandest stages has, slowly but surely, erased some of the low-key left-hander's self-doubt. 

“I think the most important thing … for me, for my head, [is] just to know that I can keep up with these players, just play close matches with them and actually win the match,” she said after beating Sabalenka in Stuttgart.

“So I think it's mostly for me just to know, 'You can do it.'”

Whatever her result on Court Philippe-Chatrier on Tuesday, this surprise package is quickly becoming a sure thing.