By Pritha Sarkar
LONDON (Reuters) – Marketa Vondrousova showed there was no room for any gushing sentiment as she ended the remarkable run of new mum Elina Svitolina with a 6-3 6-3 victory to reach the Wimbledon final for the first time on Thursday.
In the run-up to a first Wimbledon women’s semi-final featuring two unseeded players, Vondrousova had described Svitolina as “incredible”, “amazing”, “a fighter” and “a super woman” for reaching the semis of a slam just nine months after giving birth to her daughter Skai.
The Ukrainian had become a firm crowd favourite at the All England Club after she produced a fearless brand of tennis to send four Grand Slam champions spinning out of this year’s tournament.
But on Thursday, no matter how much the crowd tried to lift her with cries of “We love you Elina”, Svitolina appeared to be weighed down with the expectation of giving her war-ravaged country “a little bit of happiness” and froze on the biggest stage tennis has to offer.
A forehand passing shot winner gave Vondrousova the break for a 3-2 lead and although she surrendered her own serve in the next game with some sloppy unforced errors, including a double fault, she was back in front again in the very next game.
From them on, Svitolina was left shrieking, screeching and squealing in exasperation over and over again as Vondrousova frustrated her with her swinging left-handed serve to win seven games on the trot.
Just when it seemed that Vondrousova would whitewash her in the second set as the Czech held points to go 5-0 up, Svitolina came out swinging and broke her opponent not once but twice.
But that respite for Svitolina was fleeting as Vondrousova blocked out all the cries of support being thrown Svitolina’s way to hold tight and sealed her place in the final when her opponent blocked a service return long on match point.
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Toby Davis)
