I had heard of Angelika Cibulkova, of course. You work in sports in a country where tennis is popular … sure, you have heard of anyone ranked in the top 30.

What I did not know … is that Cibulkova is 1.60 metres tall — or just shy of 5-foot-3.

Which makes her run to the women’s singles final of the Australian Open even more impressive.

And then there is this stat:

It would appear that … for at least the past 50 years, no player shorter than 5-foot-4 has won a grand slam tennis singles championship.

I saw more than half of Cibulkova’s semi-final match with Agnieszka Radawanska, the Pole ranked No. 5 in the world to Cibulkova’s No. 24.

And that “more than half a match” lasted about 20 minutes.

I was in the rooftop gym, and someone had the tennis up on the one TV, and I was a bit surprised to see Cibulkova — who at first glance, via TV, looks stocky and well-muscled — destroy the more lithe (and taller) Radwanska.

It was not until the on-court interview, post-match, that I realized that Cibulkova is a very dinky person. The Australian woman interviewing her, Sam Smith, is easily 6-feet, but she looked a foot taller than the glowing Cibulkova.

The trend in women’s tennis for at least a generation is to find more and more tall players in the upper rankings, as the linked New York Times story from 2005 notes.

Why the trend towards height? Court coverage, perhaps? Levers and angles allowing the longer player to generate more force?

Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport, Maria Sharapova are just three prominent women players on the high side of 6 feet.

Cibulkova, however, beat Sharapova earlier in the tournament, and her work ethic and powerful ground strokes made it easier to see how she should be a handful.

Then, being a sports writer, I wanted to know when the last time a player 5-foot-3 won a grand slam event.

It appears the answer to that is … “never”.

One list seems to indicate that 5-foot-4 is your shortest winner of a major tennis tournament, but we have two at that height who were very, very good — Billie Jean King, who won 11 majors at 1.64 meters or 5-4 and a half; and Maureen Connolly, who won nine in the early 1950s — and who may have been 5-5.

I would like to see Cibulkova (1.61m), who is in the Australian Open final versus Li Na (5-foot-8), take that “shortest winner” number down a peg. Or a couple of centimeters, anyway.