Safarova inches closer to farewell at Prague Open

Last month, Lucie Safarova announced that she will play her final tournament in front of her home fans at the Prague Open, which starts Monday.

The 2015 French Open runner up has been hinting at full-blown retirement since last year. She and her usual doubles partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands (known as Team Bucie) were meant to give Safarova's Czech fans one final show in Prague.

But with Mattek-Sands undergoing knee surgery, Safarova has paired up with fellow Czech Barbora Stefkova. Safarova won the singles event in 2016 against Samantha Stosur.

With Mattek-Sands, Safarova has won the French Open and Australian Open twice, and the US Open once. The 32-year-old also competed for the Czech team in the Olympics in 2008, 2012 and 2016, and helped the Czechs win the Fed Cup five times.

In Stuttgart this week alongside Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Safarova enjoyed a run to the semifinals in her first official WTA event of 2019. Before then, Safarova had last competed in Quebec last September, though she helped the Czechs beat the Canadians in Fed Cup action earlier this month.

Hopefully in front of her home crowd, Safarova can add one more title to her doubles career total of 15.

Safarova and Stefkova will take on Makoto Ninomiya and Yana Sizikova in their opening round. Safarova is not entered in the singles draw.