DUBAI -- Karolina Pliskova has never been one to sit still. The big-serving Czech was a Top 10 staple for eight straight years from 2015 to 2022 thanks to a relentless tournament schedule. She was never one to enjoy long breaks from competition and her consistent runs into the business end of tournaments ensured she was never far from a match court. 

But after a relatively injury-free career, a freak accident during the 2022 pre-season left her with a broken arm. She's been fighting to find that Top 10 form ever since. This year, after a first-round loss at the Australian Open to No.4 Elena Rybakina, she fell to No.78. It was her lowest ranking in over a decade.

How did Pliskova respond? Well, she hasn't lost a match since.

"It's the same with all the players. If you are losing, losing, losing then it's really tough to find the game which you really want to play because then you want to win, but you don't do what you should to be able to win. I'm happy that now I found it."

- Karolina Pliskova

Pliskova's aggressive, first-strike game is one based heavily on confidence. That can be an elusive element when you're struggling to string wins together, as she did in the back half of the 2023 season. After a quarterfinal appearance in Stuttgart, she did not win back-to-back matches for the remainder of the year.

Confidence may be fleeting, but as Pliskova found this month, it can also spark out of nowhere. After taking a few weeks to reset after Melbourne, Pliskova stormed through the draw in Cluj-Napoca to win her first title since 2020. She followed it up last week with a gritty run to the Doha semifinals. Across two continents, she won nine matches in the span of 10 days to boost her ranking back into the Top 40.

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"I think it's always like maybe you survive one or two matches and then it kind of starts, you don't even know," Pliskova told WTA Insider after her first-round win at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. "Now I won so many matches which I barely did in the second part of last year. And I turned some matches around, which before, I was mostly losing these close matches.

"But, I think it's momentum sometimes. This title in Romania, I won basically all the matches in straight sets. So that kind of helped me then to relax a little bit. And when I relax then I play much better." 

Throughout much of her Top 10 reign, Pliskova was the self-anointed "Ace Queen", regularly putting herself atop the tour's leaderboard. After two matches in Dubai, she has hit 127 this season, the most on tour. Fresh off the plane from Romania, she fired 19 aces against Anna Kalinskaya in the first round of Doha, setting the mark for the most aces hit in a single match this year.

It's amazing what a few wins can do.

"Motivation was never really a problem for me," Pliskova said. "If I go on the court no matter how bad or good I feel, I always want to win. I always want to compete. 

"But my game is based on confidence and I need to feel that. Even if I'm not playing well or winning many matches, I just need to find that confidence in that moment or in that game because it's just so risky. My shots are so flat, so I go for mostly lines. If something is not going well or you start to doubt, then of course you miss a little bit. Everything is about this."

Pliskova split with coach Sascha Bajin in July of last year and started this season without appointing a coach. She was joined in Doha by veteran coach Zeljko Krajan, who was at the helm when Dinara Safina rose through the rankings to reach No.1. This isn't a trial partnership. Pliskova already likes what she's hearing from her Croatian coach.

"Personality-wise, I think he's kind of similar to me," Pliskova said. "Not really high or low. Relaxed and very like calm. 

"We didn't really plan yet anything because now the schedule was difficult. I might be in qualifying in Indian Wells. Maybe I enter San Diego. So I don't really know what's gonna be. I'm just living day by day at the moment." 

After defeating Naomi Osaka for a second time this season in Doha, Pliskova's non-stop fortnight finally took its toll. She withdrew ahead of her semifinal against eventual champion Iga Swiatek due to a lower back injury. 

This time the bounce-back was quick. The withdrawal came on Friday in Doha. She was back to her winning ways on Monday in Dubai with a win over Zhang Shuai. On Tuesday, she came from a set down to defeat Ashlyn Krueger 6-7(2), 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the Round of 16 and extend her win streak to 11 matches.

Pliskova will put that streak on the line against No.3 Coco Gauff on Wednesday.

"These two days off helped me a lot," Pliskova said. "If I had here and there, at least a day off, I think it would not get to this point that I felt this bad because physically I'm actually okay. So this was more like fatigue of, like, bones I would say, rather than muscles. 

"I mean, I can't complain. I've been waiting for this moment where I could get more matches. Very pleased."