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The Czech Republic’s women have been having an excellent Wimbledon 2014. An unprecedented three reached the last 16 at the world famous tennis tournament and the country is guaranteed a representative in the final, as former tournament winner Petra Kvitová and Lucie Šafářová are set to face one another in the semis.

The Czech economy performed beyond expectations at the start of the year. Revised figures by the Czech Statistics Office show that in the first three months of 2014, gross domestic product grew by 2.9 percent year-on-year, the highest rate since just before the start of the economic crisis six years ago. I spoke to analyst Jan Bureš of the ERA bank about the latest figures.

A year after the spying and graft scandal that brought down the centre-right government of prime minister Petr Nečas, a Prague court has delivered the first –and by all accounts only -guilty verdict in the case. The former prime minister’s close aide and now wife Jana Nečasová, formerly Nagyová, was found guilty of abusing the country’s military intelligence by getting it to secretly spy on the prime minister’s then wife Radka. The charges against six other people appear to have fallen apart, putting the Chief State Attorney’s Office in a tight

Prague’s much envied public tram, metro, and bus network is marking a special day this Tuesday with the 100th anniversary of the debut of punitive fines being imposed by ticket controllers. And for the special day, the force of around 150 controllers will be showing a different face to the travelling public with the hand out of small presents rather than the customary fairly stiff fines.

An intervention by Finance Minister Andrej Babiš in the Czech state-run energy giant ČEZ has annoyed his party’s coalition partners. Mr Babiš’s ministry has replaced seven out of eight members of ČEZ’s supervisory board, ignoring informal but well-established rules about sharing board seats with other parties in the cabinet. The conflict over the control of the Czech Republic’s most important state corporation could destabilize the country’s centre-left government.

A Slovak court has cleared the Czech finance minister and leader of the second strongest party in government Andrej Babiš of having knowingly served as an agent in the communist-era secret police. The verdict met with relief from the minister’s coalition partners but has left many of his critics unconvinced.

One of the Czech Republic’s iconic landmarks will be handed back to the Roman Catholic Church following a decision by the country’s custodian of historic buildings and sites, the National Heritage Institute. The decision forms part of the settlement with religious institutions following the confiscation of most of their property by the former Communist regime. Decisions about other significant sites are also pending.

The ice hockey club Lev Praha has shocked fans – and players – by announcing it will most likely withdraw from the Kontinental Hockey League next season. Owners of the Prague club, which reached the finals of the Russian-centred league this year, say they have not been able to secure a budget for next season.

Tribute has been paid to the great Czech industrialist Emil Kolben, with the unveiling of a plaque at his former Prague home on Wednesday morning. Kolben, who died in the Holocaust, co-founded one of the country’s most important electrical engineering companies – and today a street and metro station in the capital bear his name.

Two Czech parties, the Greens and the Pirates, contesting an artificial five-percent threshold which recently prevented them from winning mandates to the European Parliament, have new wind in their sails. On Tuesday, the country’s Supreme Administrative Court agreed the barrier was unconstitutional and asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the matter. At stake are two possible mandates or at least a change in the rules the next time around.