Slovakian Olympic Star Heads to Shrewsbury

Pictured: Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, who played in the bronze medal match for Slovakia at the recent Olympics in Paris, has entered this month’s Lexus W100 Shrewsbury tournament. Photo courtesy of Corinne Dubreuil/International Tennis Federation.

Anna Karlina Schmiedlova who fought Iga Swaitek for the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics is planning to play Shrewsbury just two months after that headline match on the centre court at Roland Garros.

As the entry list stands Schmiedlova will be the number five seed at Shrewsbury as her amazing run at the Olympics does not earn her any world ranking points. In an amazing run at Paris, she beat both Wimbledon finalists, Barbora Krejcikova and Jasmine Paolini as well as Beatrice Haddad-Maia before finally losing to Donna Vekic in the semi-final.

Ahead of arriving in Shrewsbury, Schmiedlova said “I am looking forward to coming to Shrewsbury next week. I am curious because I have only ever played grass court tournaments in the summer in the UK and never an indoor tournament there. 

“I always enjoy nature and exploring cities in the UK and Shrewsbury will be a new experience. This year I played in the semi-finals at the Olympics and that was the biggest success of my career, so I have many great memories from the 2024 season. I hope I will play a few more good matches between now and the end of the year.”

The Shrewsbury entry list also features Alycia Parks, ranked as high as 40 in the world last August, and Maria Timofeeva, who reached the last 16 of the Australian Open earlier this year.

Kristina Mladenovic, twice a Grand Slam singles quarter-finalist and a former top 10 ranked player, has also entered, along with two former Shrewsbury champions, Mona Barthel, the 2011 winner, who has a career high world ranking of 23, and Oceane Dodin, the only player to have won the Shrewsbury title twice.

Dave Courteen, the tournament promoter for the W100 Shrewsbury, said: “It’s the strongest entry list of players we have ever had here in Shrewsbury in terms of the overall rankings of players.

“There’s always the possibility that players may make late changes to their schedules, but we are now past the withdrawal deadline for the tournament so that’s much less likely to happen.

“There’s players that have very recently been in the world’s top 50, or had good runs in Grand Slams, and in the case of Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, she will be playing in Shrewsbury just eight weeks after playing in the bronze medal match in the Olympics on Court Philippe Chatrier at Roland Garros.

“Ticket sales are ahead of what they were at this stage last year, which is no surprise given the quality of the field. 

“We have increased the capacity of the stands in the DMOS People Arena to accommodate more spectators, and we look forward to welcoming everyone to The Shrewsbury Club for what will be a great week of world-class tennis.” 

It is the first time the event will be held since David Lloyd Clubs, Europe’s largest health, fitness and wellness group, recently acquired The Shrewsbury Club.