Thursday, July 11, 2024

Czechs and Fighting Italians are (always) coming for you

Today, we were privileged to see two very entertaining semifinals at Wimbledon. The first one, which lasted almost three hours, featured a third set thrill ride that had some of us on the edge of our seats. During that match, unseeded Donna Vekic--for whom it had to be a dream come true to reach this level of her favorite major--battled against French Open runner-up Jasmine Paolini, and I don't use the word "battled" lightly.

Both players are 28-year-old tour veterans. Vekic's potential has been on display for a long time; she has had a good career and has won four singles titles. She has also been a finalist nine times, which perhaps reveals something about her court mentality. It hasn't helped that Vekic has also experienced chronic knee and foot injuries, and was out for some time because of knee surgery. It wasn't that long ago that she considered retiring from the tour. 

Vekic's joy in reaching the semifinals was palpable, and anyone who has followed her career had to have been touched by the sight of her after she defeated qualifier Lulu Sun, the breakout star of this year's tournament. 

Paolini, for her part, won the Portoroz title in 2021, but it was this year, when she won Dubai, a 1000-level tournament, that she commanded our attention. The 5-foot, 4-inch Italian with the fast legs and cheerful attitude laid down a calling card in Dubai that we probably didn't read closely enough. She would go on to reach the final of the French Open, in which even her speed and guile couldn't do much to stop Iga Swiatek. And now she has reached the final at Wimbledon, too.

Vekic and Paolini played for almost three hours. On the face of it, it was a case of the hard hitter vs. the speedy, clever opponent. But the Croation player is more than just a hard hitter; she can play with aggression, and she can use some touch when she needs to. She dominated her opponent in the first set, but in the middle of the second set, Paolini gained momentum. Vekic, at times, looked distraught, but--just when it looked like she might cave--she would come up with shots that left Paolini helpless. Vekic made Paolini work to the very end, saving two match points, but finally--after two hours and 51 minutes--the Italian prevailed, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (8).

In the second semifinal, 2022 champion Elena Rybankina, a favorite to win the title--and the favorite as the tournament progressed--faced the clever, strategy-oriented Barbora Krejcikova, who won the French Open in 2021. Both women have gone through hard times lately. Rybakina was chronically ill for about three months, and Krejcikova, in the past several months, has gone through illness, injury, and the demise (at least for now) of her very long-term doubles partnership--a partnership that resulted in seven major titles and an Olympic gold medal.

Krejcikova has a good serve, and anyone who plays Rybakina needs to have a good serve, for Rybakina has ones of the best (if not the best) serve on the tour, and she's also a powerful returner. And maybe if Rybakina had had more time to recover from illness, she would have walked away as the winner; on the other hand, she was facing the woman who has defeated Iga Swiatek in two finals. When Krejcikova is in form, she's hard to beat.

Before today, Rybakina had a 19-2 record at Wimbledon. She also had an 0-2 record against Krejcikova, who, each time she has played the world number 4, has lost the first set. Today, Rybakina won the first set 6-3 (following a 4-0 lead), and there were probably a lot of people who expected her to win the second set. But Krejcikova, after struggling to break Rybakina's serve, finally broke her, and then pivoted into an entirely different rhythm, eventually breaking her opponent four times, and winning the match, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. The Czech star hit 25 winners and made 26 unforced errors.

Following the match, Krejcikova acknowledged her ongoing inspiration--the late Jana Novota, who won Wimbledon in 1998 and was the young Krejcikova's mentor. Several years ago, I wrote about WTA players who inspire us, and today, I realized that the four semifinalists are all quite inspiring. Rybakina, who has been sick for several months, nevertheless made it all the way to the semifinals. Krejcikova, in the last several months, has had to deal with illness, injury, the breakup of her very successful doubles team, and what most of us would call a slump. Paolini has slogged along for years, and--at the "old" tennis age of 28, has become a star. And Vekic, as I mentioned earlier, was close to just throwing it all in, she had been through so much.

I admire all four of them. They are made of the stuff that propels us to look for relatable metaphors in sports so that we can apply them to our own lives.

Paths to the final:

BARBORA KREJCIKOVA (31)

round 1--def. Veronika Kudermetova
round 2--def. Katie Volynets (Q)
round 3--def. Jessica Bouzas Maneiro
round of 16--def. Danielle Collins (11)
quarterfinals--def. Alona Ostapenko (13)
semifinals--def. Elena Rybakina (4)

JASMINE PAOLINI (7)

round 1--def. Sara Sorribes Tormo
round 2--def. Greet Minnen
round 3--def. Bianca Andreescu
round of 16--def. Madison Keys (12)
quarterfinals--def. Emma Navarro (19)
semifinals--def. Donna Vewkic

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