Vondrousova halts Svitolina’s stellar campaign, moves to Wimbledon championship round

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Marketa Vondrousova proved to be Elina Svitolina’s kryptonite after ending her magical run in the ongoing Wimbledon – 6.3, 6.3- last July 13, 2023, to advance to the grand finals stage of the Grand Slam tennis tournament.

After booting out female world no. 1 Iga Swiatek during the quarterfinals, Svitolina ran out of gas against the Czech superstar and failed to win a single set in an expected nip-and-tuck affair.

Vondrousova’s well-placed spin balls posed tons of problems to Svitolina’s groundstroke game and kept her out of her usual baseline rhythm in the entire two-set semifinal duel.

Despite getting pinned in several exchanges after Svitolina fired a couple of flat power forehands, Vondrousova was always in the right place and fired back with a series of momentum-clinching return aces that put the crowd on their feet.

Vondrousova also had a great serving game against the Ukrainian superstar and recorded a total of four aces built from a 63% -win rate on her first service attempts.

As the match progressed in the first set, Vondrousova was able to capitalize on Svitolina’s unforced errors and finally scored the first break-point of the match to grab a commanding 5-3 lead.

Svitolina had the chance to inch close and erase Vondrousova’s match-point advantage but her right-court placement forehand went outside the line, giving the Czech the 1-0 lead.

It was total domination at the start of the second set as Vondrousova raced to a comfortable 4-0 lead. Svitolina showed signs of life after scoring a breakpoint to rack up two-straight game sets but the Czech held her service to build a 5-3 edge.

Vondrousova then iced the semifinal match after a huge spin service, causing Svitolina’s forehand off-the-bounce pick-up to fly to the outside mark of the center line.

With the win, Vondrousova will be setting up a highly-anticipated championship matchup against Ons Jabeur of Tunisia.

Jabeur is also coming off a confidence-boosting semifinal victory over world no. 2 Aryna Sabalenka in three grueling sets- 6.7, 6.4, 6.3-.