Last night’s Wimbledon women’s singles semi-finals day at SW19 was really good to watch with back-to-back three set ties that went down the wire as four finalists now set to become two ahead of Saturday’s main event at Centre Court. It’s going to be Jasmine Paolini from Italy going up against another Czech Republic player but this time in Barbora Krejcikova. Three more days to go with the Men’s semi-final day kicking off tonight with Daniil Medvedev v Carlos Alcaraz followed by Lorenzo Musetti v Novak Djokovic, with Djokovic not required to play the last eight two days ago due to Alex De Minaur’s hip injury.
Semi-Final 1
Croatian Donna Vekic who defeated NZ’s Lulu Sun the other day in the last 8 got away with a fast start before Jasmine Paolini didn’t give up at all by holding Vekic back on both sets – even though it wasn’t easy to pull off at all. However, the Italian finally saw light at the end of the tunnel on what is going to be another grand slam singles final following her breakthrough at Roland Garros last month. She hopes to go one better having fell short to the Queen of Clay Iga Swiatek from Poland including her same doubles final appearance that next day as the final score was 6-2, 4-6 and 6-7 with the 8-10 tiebreaker.
This is a breakthrough Vekic should be proud of after finally being able to go through in her first grand slam semi-final hoping she can go all the way following a really good start. She just couldn’t get the best out of Paolini as the game goes on & that semi-finals exit at the deciding end was really unfortunate. Let’s hope she can overcome that inconsistency after a few past rare Quarter-Final outings.
Paolini is having the time of her life at 28 and the way she stood up to Vekic was unbelievable from the opening set down to finishing off her way towards the finish line via a close arm wrestle. She might not be tall but so quick to wrap things up that Vekic couldn’t do to stop the ball from slipping past her in its tracks. It’s not too late from Paolini to become such a late bloomer in the elite world of grand slam tennis as this next breakthrough awaits in the hope of finally winning a major there.
Semi-Final 2
Now that tie had same difficulty shared by both players, although that was done without tiebreaks. 2022 Champion from Kazakhstan Elena Rybakina had a brilliant charge to open the match with the opening set lead but the game wasn’t over just yet when Barbora Krejcikova had a terrific restart to level the scoreboard at 1-1. Although that 3rd set battle was another arm wrestle with Rybakina not holding back to try and hold off top spot, but it was Krejcikova who got away unscathed on what is going to be another big match-up since her 2021 Roland Garros Final triumph. The final score was 3-6, 6-3 and 6-4.
Good to see Rybakina bounce back from that early-round disappointment at the Australian Open back in January with back-to-back knockout matches so far this year including this tourney at Wimbledon as sure she’ll keep on doing better from here. The only thing that held back her is the inconsistency following a good start but then struggled to keep Krejcikova away from her sight including during the final set decider under pressure before it was too late that sealed her semi-final elimination outside the Top 2 spots. There’s the Olympics coming up in a few weeks time back on clay where she didn’t do bad there as said with the Roland Garros up until the last 8 & she also did well in 4th behind Elina Svitolina during the last Summer edition in Tokyo.
And Krejcikova is here to fly the Czech flag hoping to give her country another Wimbledon women’s singles trophy this time by herself. She had some issues at the beginning but has always been great to hold her ground v Rybakina for the most part where she brought up the 3rd set decider before she overcame such a tough arm wrestle towards the finish line and she has done it in the hope of taking her 2nd grand slam women’s singles’ title this time on the grass courts. Other than a couple of rare Quarter-Final appearances, she has never lost in a Final before & Saturday could be another one of her best days yet as we’ll see how the Czech will go against someone is so quick & mobile in Paolini.
