| Venue: All England Club Dates: 3-16 July |
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Newly crowned Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has so many tattoos she does not even know exactly how many she has.
Nevertheless, there is still plenty of space on her body to get another one – which will mark her being etched into tennis history.
Earlier this week the 24-year-old Czech said her coach Jan Hernych promised he would head to the tattoo parlour if she won one of the sport’s four Grand Slam titles.
She is going to join him. Maybe even in London on Monday morning.
“I hope he’s not going to back out,” smiled Vondrousova, shortly after beating Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur to win the singles title.
“I think I’ll choose for him. Maybe we’ll get the same one.”
Vondrousova describes getting her body inked as “art”, with tattoos dotted around her arms and legs.
On her arm she has one which reads ‘No rain, no flowers’, another which says ‘It’s OK’, along with others including a heart, a tulip and the number 13.
Vondrousova and Hernych have not yet decided what the new tattoos will be – but she joked she will “make him” do it.
“We talked before the tournament and he said ‘maybe if you win a Grand Slam, then I’ll do it’. So this is happening,” said Vondrousova, who is set to climb into the world’s top 10.
‘I couldn’t watch tennis’
For a while last year the markings on Vondrousova left arm were not visible.
She came to the All England Club wearing a plaster cast, describing herself as a “tourist” as she cheered on her best friend Miriam Kolodziejova in qualifying.
Vondrousova needed to wear the cast after having the second wrist surgery of her career.
Both surgeries were to fix what she described as “floating bones”, with the second operation necessary because she could not hit a forehand.
“The second one was really stressful – I couldn’t watch tennis,” she said.
“I was really sad. I didn’t play for six months. I had a cast on for three months. I couldn’t do much.
“I was playing good tennis beforehand and it happened – I thought ‘Oh, my God, I’m not going to stay healthy and return to my previous level’.
“When you come back you never know what to expect.”
This fortnight she has certainly defied expectations by becoming the first unseeded woman to win Wimbledon, on a surface on which she had little pedigree.
Vondrousova had played in a Grand Slam final before, reaching the French…
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