Both Jasmine Paolini of Italy and the Czech Republic’s Barbora Krejcikova came from one set down to reach the women’s singles final at the Wimbledon Championships here on Thursday.
This year’s French Open finalist Paolini looked struggling in front of the powerful serves and groundstrokes of Croatia’s Donna Vekic, losing the first set 6-2.
However, the Italian fought for every ball with energetic runs and grabbed her chance to break in the key moment of the second set to draw one set back in 6-4.
In a tense deciding set, a more relaxed Paolini twice came from a break down and finally won the tiebreak 10-8.
“This match, I will remember it forever,” Paolini said after the nearly three-hour match. “It was a roller-coaster of emotions.”
Later in the second match on centre court, Krejcikova went through an experience quite alike Paolini’s.
The former French Open champion was 4-0 down before losing the opening set 6-3 to 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, but crawled back to stun the fourth seed 6-3, 6-4.
“At the beginning, she was playing really well. She was just smashing the ball and putting a lot of winners,” said Krejcikova. “But I felt that if I’m going to just stay in the game, then I’m going to get my chances.”
UNI XINHUA GNK
