On Tuesday, July 11, time for the quarterfinals began at Wimbledon. On this day, four individual matches are held: two for men in the bottom half of the group and two for women in the top half. The first racket in the world, the Polish tennis player Iga Sviontek, continued to fight in the tournament. The leader of the WTA classification was rivaled by the representative of Ukraine Elina Svitolina.
The 28-year-old Odessa native pleasantly surprises her fans at the British Slam. Returning to the tour after the birth of a child, Elina, who was given a wild card in London, she already in the second major she reaches the quarterfinal stage. The road to it from the Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist, who now ranks only 76th in the women’s world ranking table, was a very difficult one. The easiest in terms of scoring and play for Svitolina was her opening match against the legendary Venus Williams, which she won in straight sets. Also, the Ukrainian defeated Elise Mertens from Belgium in three games (6:1, 1:6, 6:1). In the third round of the Royal Slam, Elina beat the winner of the Australian Open-2020 Sofia Kenin (7: 6, 6: 2), and in the fourth round, in an incredible thriller, she still managed to squeeze. the two-time TBS champion, the Belarusian Victoria Azarenka (2:6, 6:4, 7:6). After this confrontation, the Ukrainian could not hold back her tears. “I think this is the happiest moment of my life since the birth of my daughter. It was incredibly hard. When I lost 0-2 in the second set, I heard the crowd cheering for me. I almost wanted to cry. I also thought about how many people support me at home, in Ukraine. These are the matches you have to go through. I can’t complain now. You just have to fight,” Svitolina said in an on-court interview.
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And already at a press conference after the match with Azarenka, a native of Odessa spoke about her opponent in the Wimbledon quarterfinals – the eminent Pole Iga Swiatek. “She is a great champion and a great person. I am very grateful to her for the support of Ukrainians and Ukraine, for the fact that she does everything in her power and speaks loudly about it. She also had a big battle today. To be honest, I haven’t talked to the coach about the game plan yet. But tomorrow I will have a training day, recovery will be a priority. And then I will meet with the coach, we will discuss the match plan and look for ways to defeat Iga, ”Svitolina said at a press conference after the meeting of the 1/8 finals of the Wimbledon tournament.
The world’s first racket, by the way, did not experience any problems in the initial clashes in London. The yoke skating rink walked on the representative of China Zhu Lin, the Spanish Sorribes-Tormo and the Croatian Petra Martic. None of this trio could take a single game away from Swiatek. But in the round of 16 of the major, the Pole had to show everything she was capable of: she was inferior to the Olympic champion Bencic and was inferior in her serve 5:6, 15:40, but managed to escape a double match point and turn the game in your favor – 6:7, 7:6, 6:3. On the eve of the match with Svitolina, the 22-year-old Warsaw native emphasized that her future opponent is an experienced player and very patient. “I think it’s good that there are good players like Svitolina on the tour and she has good values. I am happy that she is back, becoming a mother. I don’t know how hard it is, but I’m sure it’s very hard. Yes, I am glad that she shows a good game. I think it will be interesting in two days. I think she is the type of player who is patient. She has enough experience to have all the necessary skills to play defense and attack. She has won many major tournaments. She knows how to play well, ”Sviontek said at a press conference after the 2023 Wimbledon fourth round match with Belinda Bencic.
It is worth noting that the history of the meetings of Iga and Elina is not rich. The tennis players competed on the court only once: in 2021, in the quarterfinals of the clay “thousand” in Rome, it was the strongest Polish athlete with a score of 6:2, 7:5.
Not surprisingly, it was she who started the reporting fight with an early break as the favorite of the fight. Sviontek took the lead with a score of 2:0 and, it seemed, had already secured a comfortable start to the game. But Elina, known for her fighting spirit, did not give in to the pressure of the current leader of the women’s rating, returning to the set and equalizing the numbers on the score-2: 2. Iga was then again separated by two games, taking the lead in the game with a score of 4:2 after the first half hour of the game. However, Svitolina was not going to give up: boxing actively supported her, and the Ukrainian herself was already slowly groping for the keys on how to cope with the first racket in the world. At the same time, she was the one dictating the game, while Elina was on the defensive. Also, a native of Warsaw just swam. First, the winner of the Final-2018 Championship held the game on her serve and then made a complete break to nil. But she didn’t stop there either, taking the remaining two games in the opening game – 7:5. The four-time TBS champion seemed like she wasn’t herself, looking at her team again and again after missed opportunities. At the same time, commentators were quick to note an interesting statistical fact after Svitolina’s one-set victory: she lost only two fights on TBS in her career, taking the opening game in the match (72 wins).
SVITOLINA
Photo: Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images
In addition, the rain intervened in the course of the confrontation. The match was interrupted for 15 minutes due to the fact that the roof of the center court was closed. As experts in social networks noted, this fact, of course, should have played Iga’s game. It was she who again made a break at the beginning of the game, but she could not keep the advantage for a long period of time, equalizing the score in it – 3: 3. Then the athletes literally went game after game, over and over again taking games at their service. Not surprisingly, the result of the match was decided in a tiebreaker. Svitolina made a mini-break, led 4-1 on “tennis penalty”, but was unable to squeeze her opponent. The Ukrainian lost the advantage, allowing her opponent to equalize the position in the set first and then leaving it in her favor: 7: 6 (7: 5).
SVENTEK
Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
It would seem that Sviontek has already broken his opponent, and the outcome of the match is already determined. However, Elina did not agree with such statements. If at first the polka and the Ukrainian took games with their service, then everything proceeded according to an unusual scenario. Svitolina took the lead with a double break in the decisive game (4:1) and it became clear that the Odessa native is almost impossible to stop. After this set, Iga managed to win just one game on her serve, and the Ukrainian calmly led the match to victory. 5:7, 7:5, 6:2: Tuesday’s opening match on the grassy center court of TBSH ended with such a score.
This victory was the seventh for the Ukrainian over the first rackets in the world. Thus, Svitolina reached her second semifinal of the British Major and the third of her career on TBS. She became the fifth Open Era wild card winner to reach the semifinals of the Slam. For reaching the decisive match of Wimbledon 2023, Elina will fight Marketa Vondrousova (Czech Republic). Well, Sviontek risks losing her leadership in the WTA ranking already at the end of Wimbledon. The fate of the throne is now in the hands of Arina Sobolenko.
