Marketa Vondrousova beats Aryna Sabalenka to reach first final since Wimbledon 2023
The Czech, who has been hampered by shoulder problems since her stunning victory at SW19, beat world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-2, 6-4 in the German Open semifinals Saturday.
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Sabalenka, one of the favorites to lift the Wimbledon title this year, had saved four match points in a tiebreak to escape 2022 champion Elena Rybakina the previous day, one of them coming via a fortunate net cord. But Vondroušová was not so profligate. After both players saved break points in their opening service games, Vondroušová needed just one chance to break Sabalenka's serve at the next opportunity. She broke again to seal a clinical first set, and when the Belarusian — as she so often does — mounted a charge early in the second, Vondroušová broke her to love to restore parity immediately and snuff out the world No. 1's momentum.
At 4-4 in the second set, Vondroušová made her move at the most critical time. A stunning forehand winner with her knee to the ground earned a Sabalenka double fault, as she tried to overpress and earn back the advantage. Sabalenka got to 30-30, but Vondroušová changed from a chipped, slow return and slammed a first serve to her opponent's ankles to cough up a short ball and win a break point. Sabalenka saved that one, but missed a routine forehand into the net under pressure at 40-40, echoing how Rybakina had tightened against her with their match on the line the previous day.
And then Vondroušová somehow stayed in a point from the shadows deep behind the baseline, lobbing and chipping strikes back into play until she managed to jam Sabalenka on a volley that she dumped into the net. Serving for the match, Vondroušová found herself down 0-40. But in the face of Sabalenka's much-improved defense, she kept playing attacking tennis and earned errors to get back to deuce. Two points later, she was back where she had dreamed of being for so long.
Vondroušová's four consecutive victories in Berlin match the longest win streak she has compiled in the two years since her Grand Slam triumph. Last grass season, her Wimbledon title defense ended with a first-round defeat to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain, then the world No. 83. Vondroušová was world No. 6. The first unseeded woman to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish one year; the second defending women's champion to lose in the first round in the Open Era the next.
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Come last year's U.S. Open, she was undergoing surgery. At 25, Vondroušová thought her career was close to over. She couldn't swing a tennis racket after surgery on her shoulder. She would try to play. The pain would return. Another surgery wasn't an option. All the time spent on physical improvement wasn't translating into tennis. She missed six months of the 2024 season, returning in January 2025.
'It's not fun,' Vondroušová told at Roland Garros a few weeks ago. 'I had to be very patient.' In Paris, she won two Grand Slam matches for the first time in over a year, and now that tennis has moved from clay to grass, her command of the ball, skidding groundstrokes and confidence at the front of the court is back on full display. In a rematch of the 2023 Wimbledon final, she took out Ons Jabeur for the right to face Sabalenka, having beaten Madison Keys, another serious Wimbledon contender, in the opening round.
Vondroušová will play either Liudmila Samsonova or Wang Xinyu in Sunday's final.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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