Plíšková is trying to find her form in America with coaches Fraňko and Martínez

Czech tennis player Karolína Plíšková in the 2nd round of the tournament in Montreal, August 9, 2023.

Cincinnati (USA) – Former world number one and Grand Slam finalist After the German Sasch Bajin, Karolína Plíšková hired a new coaching pair consisting of Michal Franěk and Colombian Carlos Martínez. During the tour in America, which culminates in her favorite Grand Slam US Open, the thirty-one-year-old tennis player informed about it on the social network X, formerly Twitter.

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Plíšková played for the title at the US Open in 2016, then the quarterfinals four more times. However, she has not been doing well lately, she managed only two out of eleven matches. Even in Cincinnati, she did not stop the result crisis, she lost in the first round on Tuesday. Before the Grand Slam in New York, which starts on August 28, she may still attend the WTA tournament in Cleveland.

“At this stage of the season, every victory is extremely important to me, and there are still a lot of big tournaments before the end of the year,” said Plíšková. In Cincinnati, she started promisingly against the Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, winning the first set 6:1, but then lost 3:6 and 4:6.

She ended her cooperation with Bajin for the second time at the end of July. “The key is the results, which were not good after a successful start to the season. But we also lacked a more active professional approach with Sascha, especially recently,” the tennis player's husband and manager Michal Hrdlička told iDNES Premium.

Forty-four-year-old Franěk testified in her club Oáza Říčany, she knows Martínez, a native of Bogotá, from the circuit as a coach and husband of the elite American doubles player of Czech origin, Nicole Melicharová. Plíšková's fitness coach is the Spaniard Alberto Lledo, who also takes care of the physique of world number one Carlos Alcaraz.

“He cuts the balloons again, he instills the philosophy of playing aggressively and dictating what happens on the court,” described Hrdlička. “She likes New York, its energy suits her. But the main thing is for Kája to enjoy tennis again. No career lasts forever, and one should enjoy the journey as well,” he added. The winner of 16 tournaments, Plíšková is now in 25th place in the world rankings.