Over the first 10 days of 2017, we're examining the Top 10 players on the ATP and WTA tours—how will they fare during the new season? All of the previews can be found here.
There are questions marks hovering over most players at the start of each season. But this year none looms as large as the one that Karolina Pliskova carries with her. Is the 23-year-old Czech, who wowed the tennis fans of New York with her run to the U.S. Open final in September, about to enter a more productive phase of her career? Or was that just a random high point for a talented player who is destined to have wild swings in form from one week to the next?
If you take the long view, Pliskova is making steady progress. Since 2012, she has moved from No. 67 to No. 24 to No. 11 to No. 6 in the rankings. That makes her the third-youngest player in the Top 10, and the highest-ranked player under 25. And if that isn’t enough to make you sit up and take notice, let’s take a look back at her summer in the States. In Cincinnati, she won the most important title of her career, and dropped just four games to Angelique Kerber in the final. Three weeks later at the Open, Pliskova put her name on the short list of women who have knocked both Venus and Serena Williams out of a Slam. And she was the first to do it in a stadium filled with 23,000 people hoping, praying and screaming for her to lose.