In 2015, Anna Karolina Schmiedlova had a fantastic year. She reached three WTA Finals, winning two of them, and played in the WTA Elite tournament in Zhuhai, beating Roberta Vinci 6-1, 6-0. Overall, 2015 was definitely a success for Schmiedlova, and expectations were very high entering the 2016 season. Unfortunately, it seems as if the weight of these expectations have caused Schmiedlova's game to collapse.
2016 has not been a good year of tennis for Anna Karolina. Her record this year is 6-23, which includes a 2-1 record in Fed Cup and an 0-1 record in the Olympics. If you take these matches out of her record to show how she is doing in matches in which WTA points were on the line, she is 4-21, which equates to a winning percentage of 16%.
Now, luckily for her, she is still doing decently rankings-wise, at number 86. But, this is largely due to good results during the end of last summer and last fall, which included a Third Round appearance at the US Open, a semifinal in Seoul, a quarterfinal, in Wuhan, and the previously mentioned victory in Zhuhai. This makes it very important for Schmiedlova to turn her year around, quickly.
So, as opposed to turning this into an article bashing Schmiedlova's year, I have decided to try to figure out some ways that Anna Karolina can turn her year around. Hopefully, she will read these tips and incorporate, at least, think about some of the ideas I am suggesting, as I really hate to see a player struggle at the magnitude that she has, without any (known) injuries that could be explain her play.
How Can Schmiedlova Turn Her Year Around?
1. Seeing Either a Therapist or a Sports Psychology: At the beginning of the year, many of Schmiedlova's losses were in straight sets, however, in recent matches, Anna Karolina has played decently well, she just hasn't been able to finish the match. In recent matches to Sasnovich, Ostapenko, and Kontaveit, Schmiedlova has had at least one match point, but just hasn't been able to close out the match. I think, whether it be a general therapist or sports psychologist, it would be good for Anna Karolina to talk about what she is going through on court, to have someone totally unbiased who will understand what she is going through and help her work through the issues that she is facing. Perhaps Schmiedlova's issues are an injury that she isn't telling anyone about or something going on in her personal life, but whatever the case, having a therapist or sports psychologist to talk with would do Anna Karolina a lot of good, in my opinion.
2. Block out Distractions: Perhaps Schmiedlova's issues with her game is that she is not fulling invested in tennis this year, and is distracted by other diversions in her life. Whether she deems distractions as player parties, social media accounts, such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter, television, texting, the internet, or anything else, it is important that Anna Karolina identifies what might be distracting her from playing her best tennis and block out those distractions from her her life. It might be as simple as blocking out other diversions in her life that could lead Anna Karolina back to being a top 30 player.
3. Don't Panic and Play Too Many Tournaments: In a situation like Anna Karolina's, it would be easy to panic and just sign up for a tournament every week. I think this is a bad idea, however. What playing every week does is, if Schmiedlova doesn't win it just continues, every week, to hurt her mindset. However, if Schmiedlova does start winning and goes on a couple runs in consecutive tournaments, she will be fatigued and would be setting herself up to lose due to exhaustion in subsequent tournaments, if playing, for instance, for three or four weeks in a row. So, I don't think it is a great idea for Schmiedlova to have played seven tournaments in the past eight weeks (if we include New Haven as a tournament for next week). I think that, perhaps, scheduling a tournament every-other-week would provide the best balance of playing but not overplaying.
Notice how, in my advice to Anna Karolina, I don't mention any technical changes to her game. I think Schmiedlova's game is fine, otherwise she wouldn't have won two WTA titles. For Schmiedlova, I truly think that improving her game is more a matter of doing the right things off-the-court as opposed to making changes to the fundamentals of Anna Karolina's game.
But, Anna Karolina Schmiedlova is a very good tennis player, and I absolutely believe that she will turn her year around.
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