A Grand Slam double for the former Olympic doubles champion. Barbora Krejcikova may never live a day that tops this one.
A former world No1 in doubles when partnering Czech compatriot Katerina Siniakova, now the limelight, the sunlight, is hers and hers alone.
This 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 victory against No7 seen Jasmine Paolini was the fourth scalp against a higher seed in as many rounds for the 28-year-old. Danielle Collins, Jelena Ostapenko, even former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina were swept, swatted and first-served aside on this unlikely run to Centre Court glory.
Marketa Vondrousova was the unfancied women’s champion from the Czech Republic last summer. For 2024, read: Krejcikova. She is a deserving champion, just as when she won her only previous Grand Slam singles title, stunning the field by running off with the trophy at Roland Garros in 2021.
This Wimbledon final was no one-sided contest, not, by any means, a canter to lifting the famed Venus Rosewater Dish. Paolini of Italy made her work for it. Not so in the first half, which the Czech won 6-2, but without doubt from that point on.
Paolini, 28, was broken in the first game, held on her second service game, but trailed 3-1, 4-1, and 5-1 in a first set that showed a nervier, tenser, less explosive version of the player that had started 2024 as barely a top-30 player but has now won the Dubai WTA 1000 event and reached the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The last women’s player to make those two slam finals in the same year was a certain Serena Williams in 2016. Decent company to keep.
Paolini was proving rather routine company for Krejcikova, until the end of that ghastly first set from the Italian, at which point she took her leave for a bathroom break and must have forced some choice words on herself.
Whatever was said in that mirror worked. Forehands were firmer, serving was more precise, and drop shots started to come off. Krejcikova was, finally, put under pressure. She buckled, losing the second set by the same score she had won the first, 6-2.
Brutal serving ensued early in the deciding set — both players holding to love in their first service games as the crowd on Centre Court were treated to a nip-and-tuck final from which they were unclear which finalist would prevail.
It would be Krejcikova, breaking for 4-3, holding for 5-3, and then getting over the line in a dramatic final service game in which she led 30-0, then trailed 30-40. After fourth deuce and with plenty of spectators beginning to wonder whether that particular game would ever end, Krejcikova sealed the deal.
Paolini, the fresh wrenching of defeat just minutes old, praised her opponent’s “beautiful” tennis and hailing her own “crazy” last two months. She thanked everyone who had helped her to the biggest match in a tennis player’s career. Or at least she tried. “I’ll forget someone but please don’t be mad at me.”
Her conqueror, Krejcikova, simply basked in the jubilation of the “best day of my life”.
“I don’t have the words right now”, she added. She didn’t need them. She just beamed.
