Dominika Cibulkova Adopts Sea Turtle as part of The Olive Ridley Project

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Former World No. 4 Dominika Cibulkova, of Slovakia, has adopted a sea turtle as part of The Olive Ridley Project. The turtle that Cibulkova has adopted is named Jacob and lives in the Maldives. As per their website, The Olive Ridley Project was founded in 2013 by Biologist Martin Stelfox in response to the large amounts of entangled olive ridley sea turtles he encountered in the Maldives: He wanted to understand the phenomenon of olive ridley sea turtles drifting into the Maldives entangled in ghost nets and identify where the ghost nets originate from.

Since then, Olive Ridley Project volunteers have removed more than 5 tons ghost nets and recorded 863 trapped turtles: olive ridleys make up 88.5% of the trapped turtles recorded. (Numbers accurate as of December 2019.) 30 year old Cibulkova has won eight WTA singles titles during her career.

She has reached the quarterfinals or better of all four Grand Slam tournaments. Her final appearance at the 2014 Australian Open made her the first Slovak woman to reach the championship round of a Grand Slam in history. She also won the WTA Finals in 2016, becoming the fourth player to win the tournament on her debut.

She retired from tennis at the end of the 2019 season. In December 2019, soon after announcing her retirement, she announced that she was expecting her first child with husband Michal Navara.