Brenda and Linda, the blossoming Czech sister act in tennis

While the Chennai crown in September was Linda’s first WTA title and fourth overall in singles, Brenda had a staggering eight victories on the ITF tour last year alone, the most by any player in the season.

Incredibly, it was Brenda’s first year as a pro, one which she began as the world No 1095 in the WTA singles charts and signed off at No 128 as a teen sensation primed for stardom. The signs and surge, though, were there all along.

Her first triumph in Argentina in February last year put her alongside the likes of Justine Henin and Anna Kournikova as a 14-year-old ITF singles champion. She repeated that the following week to become the first 14-year-old in history to win ITF singles titles in back-to-back weeks.

Six months later, Brenda, still 14, became the youngest player ever to flaunt five ITF singles titles. This was a period where she tasted five tournament victories on the bounce between June and September, cooking up a 27-match win streak in the process. By the time the eighth title came about in October, Brenda was two shy of the record for most ITF titles in a season (Arantxa Rus, 2019).

“Last year gave me a lot of confidence. It was an amazing year,” Brenda said in a chat from Bengaluru after the win. “But still, in tennis, every week is a new week, and every tournament where you don’t win the whole thing you are kind of disappointed.”

As jaw-dropping as her pro debut season was, it directed plenty of attention and eyeballs towards her. The teen felt that. Even more so at the 2023 Australian Open where she became the fifth youngest to qualify for the main draw at Melbourne Park before losing the first round. Title No 9 in India, her first of 2023, therefore meant that bit more to her.

“For sure, there is a lot of pressure on me. But then I say to myself, ‘I’m still 15. I’ve got to enjoy the tournaments a lot more’. Because, you know, it’s what I live for. I try to not stress about it, even though there is pressure on me. I’ve got to a pretty high ranking for my age, so people do expect things from me.”

Her elder sister, a former junior world No 2, has been there and done that. Brenda has seen that and followed that. Quite literally, at times. A year after Linda bagged the title at Les Petits As, a 12-year-old Brenda won it in 2020, becoming the youngest winner of the prestigious U-14 junior world event. As much as they script these historic sister tales, the Czech sensations hardly discuss the sport.

“We do give each other some advice at times. But we don’t actually talk about tennis a lot, unless either of us is going through some struggles or something in a tournament,” Brenda said.

Growing up in Prague, the sisters played a variety of sports in school but “tennis was always the most important sport for me”, even though no one in their family played it. “The other sports were like hobbies while tennis was always the thing we wanted to do in future,” she said. “We had big dreams from it since we were very young.”

Helping them shape that dream over the last few years is Frenchman Patrick Mouratoglou, who has coached the likes of Serena Williams and in whose academy both the sisters train in Nice. “Patrick helps us a lot. He is someone who has a lot of experience and is a very hardworking and positive person. It means a lot to have someone like him around me,” Brenda said.

Brenda senses the hype around her, yet her goals are no less lofty. “I want to make the top 100 this year and play good in Grand Slams. And, in the long term, be the world No 1 and win as many Grand Slams as possible.”