Surprises keep coming in the Wimbledon prize list and the 2024 edition will be a good year in this regard since the final on Saturday will pit the Italian Jasmine Paolini, who had never won a match on grass before this year, against the Czech Barbora Krejcikova, who has been almost invisible on the circuit for months.
On Thursday in the semi-finals, Paolini reversed a badly started arm wrestling match at the very end of the match against the Croatian Donna Vekic, whom she finally beat 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10/8), while Krejcikova overcame the 2022 winner Elena Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Paolini (7e world) had already created a surprise by reaching the final at Roland-Garros in June.
Bis repeated since she snatched the ticket to the Wimbledon final from Vekic (37)e) after being dominated almost the entire match.
On a surface where the 28-year-old Italian won the very first match of her career the week before Wimbledon, in Eastbourne, she won the longest women’s semi-final in the history of the tournament on Thursday in 2 hours 51 minutes.
“It was very hard… She was hitting me in all directions,” she commented.
“I struggled at the beginning, I was serving very badly. I really had to raise my level of play,” explained Paolini, who will be the first Italian to play in a Wimbledon final.
Breakup
In fact, during two sets, she was dominated by the Croatian and on the verge of breaking down.
Paolini lost her serve twice in the first set and in the second she held on to her hard-fought serve until leading 5-4.
And against all expectations, even against the course of the game at that moment, it was Vekic who cracked: she conceded her serve and the set in the tenth game.
“Little by little, I was saying to myself: ‘Go ahead, try’. There is no better place than here, on this Centre Court, to fight for every point,” Paolini said.
Again, Vekic looked like she might take control of the match when she broke immediately in the third set.
But the Croatian got physically affected, started making mistakes and serving less well. So much so that Paolini managed to break back to come back to 3-3.
The tension then became unbearable.
From breaks to unbreaks, nerves initially took precedence over quality before the players threw themselves body and soul into the battle and the duel finally became a great battle in the last six games and the super tie break.
Blades of grass
Vekic notably saved a first match point at 5-4. Then, for a few blades of grass one of her forehand attacks was confirmed as a fault by the hawk-eye, allowing Paolini to keep her serve in order to lead 6-5. On her serve, Vekic saved a second match point to clinch the super tie break in which she ended up losing.
To win the biggest title of her career (she has two so far, including one won this year in Dubai), Paolini will face Krejcikova, who took care of knocking out the huge favourite in the last four.
“It’s hard to explain, but I feel immense joy and a lot of emotion. I’m also very relieved and super proud of my game and my fighting spirit,” commented the 28-year-old Czech.
Indeed, Rybakina flew in the first set and with a double break (4-0) managed to pocket it. But then, the mechanics got a bit jammed.
Not completely, but enough for Krejcikova to regain her composure, start believing and finally prevail.
“I never imagined I would play in the singles final (after two doubles titles in 2018 and 2022),” said the latter. She had never before gone beyond the round of 16 on the London grass.
She won Roland Garros in 2021 but is recovering from illness and injuries: between February and June, she only played three matches on the circuit.