Former world No. 7 Nicole Vaidisova will not travel to Australia and will instead play the $25,000 Daytona Women's Pro Tennis Championships, a USTA Pro Circuit event, held January 19-25 in Florida. The 25-year-old began playing again last September after being off the pro tour for just over four years. In 2010, Vaidisova said that she no longer enjoyed playing tennis and quit.
“I think with her we never really had that feeling that she was out there for the fun of it,” former No. 1 Kim Clijsters said at the time. “I think she felt a lot of pressure...There's girls, if you're a perfectionist in sports, I think it's very hard to achieve. Maybe after a while it becomes very draining…She was always a girl, especially in matches, was very down and showed a lot of emotions."
Vaidisova had a great start to her career, reaching the semifinals of the 2006 French Open and 2007 Australian Open, and the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 2007 and 2008. The six-foot Czech cracked the Top 10 in May 2007, reaching a high of No. 7 at 18. She had been coached by her stepfather Ales Kodat for most of that time, but eventually brought in two other notable coaches, David Felgate and Eric van Harpen. She began to slide in 2009, barely winning matches, and decided to quit playing in March 2010.
Vaidisova married ATP player Radek Stepanek in 2011 and went to a number of tournaments with him, but the two divorced in 2013.
Vaidisova, who trains at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, is currently ranked No. 602 and will be given a wild card into the Florida Pro Circuit event. Other players entered in the tournament include Sachia Vickery, Michelle Larcher de Brito, and Catherine "CiCi" Bellis, the No. 1-ranked junior who upset Dominika Cibulkova at the 2014 U.S. Open.