Former doubles No.1 Peschke plays last WTA event

Kveta Peschke, who reached the doubles World No.1 ranking in 2011, has played her final event on the Hologic WTA Tour. The Czech hopes to be able to play her final tournament at Wimbledon this summer.

The Czech veteran played her last sanctioned WTA event this week at the 2022 Credit One Charleston Open. She and partner Tereza Mihalikova lost to Anna Danilina and Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-3, 6-3 in the first round. 

Peschke, 46, has been one of the tour's top doubles performers for nearly two decades. She appeared in the Top 10 of the rankings every year for a 10-year stretch between 2006 and 2015 and finished in the year-end Top 10 on five occasions.

Overall, Peschke won 36 doubles titles and reached an additional 42 doubles finals throughout her career.

The pinnacle of her doubles success came in 2011, when she ascended to the top spot for the first time on July 4, following her Wimbledon title alongside Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia.

Peschke and Srebotnik jointly held the World No.1 ranking for 10 weeks during 2011, teaming up to win six doubles titles that season. They were named the WTA Doubles Team of the Year and the ITF World Champions in women's doubles.

Peschke and Srebotnik also reached the 2010 Roland Garros doubles final, losing to Serena and Venus Williams. Peschke made another Wimbledon women's doubles final in 2018 with Nicole Melichar, falling to Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.

Peschke is a three-time doubles finalist at the season-ending WTA Finals (twice with Srebotnik and once with Rennae Stubbs), as well as a three-time US Open mixed doubles finalist.

Peschke's 36th and most recent doubles title came last year at age 46, when she won in Chicago with partner Andrea Petkovic. That was Petkovic's first doubles title.

Peschke also succeeded in singles, reaching a career-high ranking of No.26 in 2005. Under her maiden name of Hrdlickova, she won a title as a qualifier on the clay courts of Makarska in 1998, which propelled her into the Top 100 of the singles rankings for the first time.

The next year, Peschke reached the singles final of the indoor event in Leipzig as a qualifier, earning a Top 10 win over Mary Pierce in the semifinals before falling to another Top 10 player from France, Nathalie Tauziat, in the final.

Peschke's best singles performance at a Grand Slam event was a run to the Round of 16 at 2005 Wimbledon, where she beat former champion Conchita Martinez and future finalist Vera Zvonareva along the way.

Peschke was a regular performer at World Team Tennis, playing eight seasons. She was also a member of the Czech Republic's Billie Jean King Cup team multiple times between 1998 and 2011 and played in the 2000 Olympics doubles event.