Interview: For maturing Karolina Muchova, less is more

Streamlining her training and listening to her body is paying dividends for the Roland-Garros runner-up

Karolina Muchova wins at US Open 2023 ZUMA / Panoramic

Simon Cambers

August 27, 2023

US Open •First round • completed

See draw

K. MuchovavsS. Sanders

In an era when power and repetitions seems to be more and more important, it’s refreshing to see someone take a little step back and realise that for them, that’s not the way to go.

Karolina Muchova has never simply followed the pack. As a child, she played a wide variety of sports, from handball and ice hockey to figure skating and even synchronised swimming.

That variety perhaps explains part of her playing style, the Czech one of the very few players to utilise serve and volley, while her mix of spins causes opponents huge problems.

“Now we’re all on the same page”

But earlier this year, Muchova made a decision. She needed to slow down, reduce her practice to focus on quality rather than quantity.

“I would say I listen more to my body,” Muchova said on the eve of the US Open, where she is through to the semi-finals, having secured her place in at least the eight of all four slams.

“Before I was always listening to my coaches – it’s not that I don’t listen to them (now) but it was like two hours of gym, two hours of tennis and this kind of thing.

“Now I’m more like, OK, now I’m really, really tired. I feel it. It’s not doing well.

“So I changed the whole team and I think we are all on the same kind of page, which is nice, and they kind of support me in that.

“Obviously I would prefer to do nothing, so they have to push me a little bit. But they listen to me. I try to listen more to my body and get like the right rhythm. So I have some days off. It’s not like I practise every day. Some days I practice half hour just with a coach, just to get a feel. Really, we just see how it is, and we change according to how I feel.”

Changes paying dividends

You could call it maturity, perhaps. At 27, Muchova has learned what works for her, and it’s producing results on the court. At Roland-Garros in June, she reached her first Grand Slam final, losing out in a thrilling final to Iga Swiatek and last week, she reached her first WTA 1000 final in Cincinnati, beating Swiatek before losing to an inspired Coco Gauff in the final.

Like Petra Kvitova, who famously never practised more than an hour and a half a day as a teenager, Muchova has realised that less can be more.

“Yeah, yeah, I agree on that,” she said. “Sometimes less is more as well. That’s how I see it now. Like coming from Cincinnati playing a lot of matches. Tough matches, long matches. So now we are less is more, so yeah, I like that.”

Muchova taking nothing for granted

Beaten in the first round at Wimbledon when she fell in the third set against Jule Niemeier, Muchova is full of confidence coming into the US Open, where she has looked confident and solid throughout.

But she’s taking nothing for granted, trying to reduce the pressure on her shoulders. “We start from zero here,” she said.

Five down, two to go.