Surprise, surprise! Krejcikova and Paolini, two unlikely contenders at Wimbledon, meet in the women’s final

LONDON (AP) — Barbora Krejcikova was struggling with a bad back and had only a few wins this season before Wimbledon.

So yes, she is quite surprised to have reached the final at the All England Club on Saturday against No. 7 Jasmine Paolini, who is equally surprised to be one step away from the title.

Neither player has ever made a singles final at Wimbledon (Paolini was 0-3 at the major on grass before this tournament began) and their meeting ensures there will be another champion. Wimbledon has seen seven women win the last seven singles titles, dating back to Serena Williams winning her seventh title in 2016.

“I’ve had a lot of tough times. I never imagined that I could reach a Wimbledon final, that I could be a different player,” said Krejcikova, who won the 2021 French Open for her only Grand Slam singles title.

Krejcikova and Paolini both dropped their first sets in the semi-finals before coming back to reach the final.

Krejcikova, seeded No. 31, eliminated 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Centre Court after Paolini defeated Donna Vekic 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) in the longest Wimbledon women’s semi-final on record.

For both winners, the dynamic changed when they started playing more aggressively, something they will likely have to do again on Saturday.

Krejcikova, 28, lost her first three service games, although she also broke Rybakina twice in the first set, which at least gave her something to build on in mounting her comeback.

Krejcikova likes to come to the net — she has won seven Grand Slam doubles titles, including two at Wimbledon — and after just one approach in the first set, she won 11 points out of 14 forward passes.

“I felt like maybe I should put a little more pressure on him. I was looking for options first. One of them is the serve-and-volley,” she said.

Before the semi-final, Krejcikova admitted: “I didn’t really expect to get this far.”

She reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open in January but was then slowed by a back injury and what she described as a series of illnesses.

After Melbourne Park she played only nine matches, winning three, before moving to the All England Club. Two of her victories came in a warm-up tournament on grass in Birmingham.

Paolini, 28, who is of Italian descent with family ties in Poland and Ghana, is the first woman representing Italy to reach the Wimbledon final in the Open era, which began in 1968.

She is also the first woman to reach the title matches at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same season since Williams in 2016.

“The final, Paris and here, these are things I didn’t expect. It’s special,” said Paolini, who lost to Iga Swiatek in the Roland Garros final.

After enjoying some rest, Paolini and Krejcikova both have a lot of work to do. Krejcikova double-faulted six times against Rybakina. Paolini wasted two match points before knocking Vekic down and said afterwards: “I was drowning, but I managed to swim.”

The finalists have only met once before, in qualifying for the 2018 Australian Open. Krejcikova won in three sets, but that will likely not matter in Saturday’s final – neither woman even remembers the match.

The 1.63m Paolini tries to control rallies with early strikes and frustrates her opponents by appearing to go to every spot on the court defensively. Emma Navarro, who eliminated Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka before losing to Paolini in the quarter-finals, said the Italian was “above her from the first point”.