For many tennis-conscious people Tomas Berdych is only known as best player who didn’t win a grand slam but besides this fact Berdych was over the years maybe the most solid player on tour who shined as gentleman with smart attitude, nice behaviour and as a husband who introduced with his wife Ester Satorova a lot of gloss in the tennis-circuit. Now he retires after competing strong for 17 years in the tour business.
By latest in 2005 at the Paris Masters with Berdych appeared as new star on the tennis sky. With his 5-set-win against former world number three Ivan Ljubičić (40) he won his first big title.
He jumped afterwards for the first time in the top 25 of the ATP Rankings.
But his increasing success also complicated more and more his relationship with former world number 5 Lucie Šafářová (32). „There was too much tennis“, Berdych told Channel Seven with regard to his first relationship. In 2006 he reached for the first time the top 10, playing two finals and with three fourth rounds a solid grand slam season. After remaining over the next years a solid top 20 player he reached in 2010 his biggest success by playing in Wimbledon a grand slam final where he defeated on his route defending Champion Roger Federer (38) in the quarters and number 3 seed Novak Djokovic (32) in the semis. He lost to Rafael Nadal (33) in the final in straight sets. Even if he lost the final for Berdych it was ‚the best tournament of his life‘ and ‚a very special moment‘.
With a following semi-final at the french open he reached for the first time number 6 in the ATP Rankings. In 2012 and 2013 Berdych wrote with his Czech Team history by winning the Davis Cup in a remarkable final with 3:2 against Spain in Prague. Berdych won against Nicolas Almagro (34) and also his double-match with Radek Stepanek (40) against Marcel Granollers (33) and Marc Lopez (37).
Only two weeks ago the Czech Fed Cup Team already won the fed cup with Lucie Šafářová and Petra Kvitova (29), also in Prague. While Berdych already split in 2011 from his long time girlfriend Šafářová in 2012 he made his new relationship with model Ester Satorova (27) public.
One year later Berdych and his team defended the title by beating Serbia in Belgrade again with 3:2. Berdych won against Dusan Lajovic (29) and his doubles with Radek Stepanek against Nenad Zimonjić (43) and Dušan Vemić while Stepanek sealed the next big success for the Czech Team. As Berdych and Satorova married 2015 in Monte Carlo, his tennis carrer moved also because of back injuries slightly downwards.
As he had to end his season in 2017 earlier he was plagued with back injuries during most of his 2018 season. „I love the game, I like it but I want to be back on court thinking to be in shape and needing to beat just one opponent: who is on the other side of the net, not myself. I even thought about retirement, but then I thought it was not the case, the work I was doing would have been wasted“, Berdych told towards tennisworldusa. In 2019 Berdych celebrated with the final in Doha, the fourth round at the australian open and the semis in Montpellier a strong comeback but unluckily his back injury reappeared and the match at the US Open against Jenson Brooksby has been his last match on tour.
Due to where his rise all began it would have been magic if his personal fareweel would have been in Paris at the Masters but Berdych decided due to his latest injury struggles lately in November to say goodbye. So he received amongst other retiring tour pros like David Ferrer (37) and Nicolas Almagro at the ATP World Tour Finals in London a well earned honor.
To his future plans he made a smugly comment: „The plan is actually not to have any plans. The last 15, 20 years was so hectic and so demanding that I just need to just to breathe out easily after all those years“, Berdych told ubitennis.net.
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