Some players rise by force, some by volume, and some by simply refusing to disappear.
Marketa Vondrousova, who opened 2025 floating in the mid-30s and closed it in the same neighborhood, did it the third way — a season where she played far less than her peers but still held her ranking with a mix of selective scheduling, grass-court brilliance and one monster run in New York.

Her year was not a full narrative.
It was a mosaic — scattered pieces, separated by absences — but the pieces that landed mattered.

This is her 2025 in full.

A Start Without Rhythm: Australia to Middle East

Vondrousova’s year opened with sharp contradictions. She beat Pavlyuchenkova in Adelaide in a clean, structured match, then retired a round later against Diana Shnaider. In Abu Dhabi she looked sharper: wins over Raducanu and Putintseva, both in straight sets, before Belinda Bencic beat her in tidy fashion 7-5 6-3.

Doha and Dubai repeated the theme: an early ceiling in Doha with Svitolina beating her from a bagel down. In dubai an early win against Caroline Garcia but Mirra Andreeva rolled her 7-5, 6-0 in the second round.

The signs were not bad — just inconclusive.
It was a Marketa season, but with the edges softened: the touch was there, the creativity was there, the stubbornness was there — the continuity wasn’t.

Clay: A Flicker, Then the Familiar Wall

Paris offered a miniature version of her season in one week.

She handled Selekhmeteva and Frech with ease, the backhand carving up space like it was 2019 again. But Jessica Pegula drew a firmer line in the third round, sending her home 3-6, 6-4, 6-2.

In Madrid and Rome she didn’t play; in Strasbourg she didn’t appear; there was no lead-up volume — and no momentum.
She was now behind the curve but almost out of it too.

Berlin: The Week — and Why It Saved Her Season

Then came the lightning strike.

Ranked No.164! because of her limited schedule, Vondrousova arrived in Berlin needing wins. She collected them in bulk:

• d. Madison Keys (No.6)
• d. Diana Shnaider (No.12)
• d. Ons Jabeur
• d. World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-2, 6-4
• d. Wang Xinyu in a nervy, technical final

It was her cleanest, most complete week since winning Wimbledon.
The slicing, floating, redirecting Vondrousova — the player who bends rallies like wire — was back.

And it mattered.
Not just for confidence, but for survival.

Without Berlin, she would have finished 2025 outside the Top 60.
With Berlin won, she stayed in the mix all year — even during the long silences between tournaments.

Wimbledon & the North American Run

Wimbledon was brief: a solid opening win over Kessler, then a straight-set loss to Raducanu. One match of crisp geometry, one match where the serve vanished and the movement looked heavy.

Montreal and Cincinnati? More fragments.

She beat Eala, then lost to Kostyuk in three.
She beat Cristian, then ran into Sabalenka.

There was some form, but no flow.

And then — New York.

US Open: Relevance, Reasserted

Arriving unseeded and totally unmentioned, Vondrousova pieced together the run that guaranteed her ranking wouldn’t slide into the 60s or worse:

• d. Selekhmeteva 6-3, 7-6
• d. Kessler 7-6, 6-2
• d. Paolini (No.7) 7-6, 6-1
• d. Rybakina (No.10) in a brilliant 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 win
• a place in the quarterfinals before withdrawing against Sabalenka

This was the version that reminds everyone of the danger she poses: the way she strangles pace, the way she compresses the court, the way she makes aggressive hitters second-guess everything they know.

It was her best hard-court stretch of the year — and the ballast that held her ranking steady.

Asia: Running Out of Rounds

There were only a few tournaments left.

She dropped back-to-back meetings with Karolina Muchová — one retirement (Tokyo), one straight-set loss (Ningbo).

There was nothing catastrophic.
There was nothing uplifting.
Just more fragments.

But by then, the important work was already done.

The Marketa Vondrousova Assessment

Marketa Vondrousova’s 2025 was a season of low volume but high impact.
She played far fewer matches than players around her in the rankings — some played double, some triple — yet she stayed relevant because when she did play well, it came at the right moments:

• Berlin title (including a win over the World No.1)
• US Open quarterfinal
• Multiple Top-10 wins
• No prolonged losing streaks despite long breaks

The missing piece was fitness over injury.
The serve wavered. The fitness fluctuated. The rhythm was elusive.

But she avoided the freefall that typically accompanies a fragmented schedule — and that is its own kind of triumph.

Final Verdict: B- (saved by the peaks)

A season built on isolated masterpieces rather than week-to-week solidity.
When she was good, she was brilliant.
When she wasn’t, she simply wasn’t there.

But she held her ground — and in a year when she played fewer than 50% of the matches of her peers, that’s a skill too.

GPA: 2.7

Not a climb.
Not a collapse.
Just a reminder that even in small doses, Marketa Vondrousova remains one of the most uniquely disruptive players in the sport. Made in Czechia. Where else…

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