Wimbledon: Vondrousova plays near-perfectly, beats Svitolina

Marketa Vondrousova played at Wimbledon on Thursday like she had won the tournament multiple times. For most of the match, it didn’t seem as if Vondrousova could literally miss any shot she attempted. She likely even made some shots she had never made before. She was unbelievably brilliant and, if you play tennis, you should hope to have a match in your life like the one Vondrousova had against Svitolina.

There was seemingly no ball Vondrousova could not get to for much of the match. There was no angle she could not make her own. Her first-serve was well placed, but it was her groundstrokes that dominated the match. It didn’t help Svitolina that she was having an extremely poor match, too, as she was magnificently inconsistent with her forehand and had far too many unforced errors.

Vondrousova broke Svitolina six times while Svitolina won a wretched amount of her first serves -23 of 46 points. Svitolina had zero aces, and Vondrousova had 4 (though she also had 6 double faults). Svitolina won only 4 of her 13 second serves.

Marketa Vondrousova dominates Elina Svitolina in Wimbledon semifinals

Vondrousova did seem to tighten up once the match got to 4-0 in the second set. Her forehand was a bit wild at times and then she was broken twice to make the set 4-3. It could be she began to realize how close she was to getting to her second Grand Slam final (plus, she had never made it past the second round at Wimbledon previously) or that she simply got tired. But Vondrousova then broke Svitolina again and served out the match to win 6-3 6-3.

Vondrousova came into Wimbledon unseeded and ranked 42nd. But heading into the finals, if she plays anywhere nearly as good and efficiently as she did through much of her match against Svitolina, she could beat anyone she faces and it might not be close. Check that, it won’t be close whether she faces Ons Jabeur or Aryna Sabalenka who meet in the other women’s semifinal on Thursday.