Barty in Wimbledon quarters
World No.1 Ashleigh Barty reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the first time yesterday, beating French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 7-5, 6-3.
The 25-year-old Australian will play the winner of the match between unseeded compatriot Ajla Tomljanovic and British teenager Emma Raducanu for a place in the semi-finals today.
Defeat brought an end to Krejcikova’s 15-match winning streak and she will have to wait another year to see if she can emulate her late coach and mentor Jana Novotna in winning the title.
“It was an incredibly tough match,” said Barty.
“Barbora has had an unbelievable year and am happy to come through in the end. I found some good stuff when it was important.”
“This is a bit down to the work myself and my team do in practice but this is the fun part to come out and enjoy myself. It can be frustrating at times but it tastes sweeter when you win.”
Ons Jabeur’s historic Wimbledon campaign saw her reach the quarter-finals, beating Poland’s 2020 French Open champion Iga Swiatek 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 in their fourth round match.
The 26-year-old is the first Tunisian woman to reach the last eight at Wimbledon and will face second seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus who defeated Elena Rybakina 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
Sabalenka will be playing in her first Grand Slam quarter-final.
Jabeur showed great poise to stay in the match after she let slip a 5-4 lead and serving for the first set only for the Pole to reel off three games on the bounce.
Swiatek, after a flat opening, had taken note of a young Polish fan holding up a board inscribed ‘Jazda Iga’ (‘Come on Iga’).
“It was a great match and I had to stay calm rather than get angry when I failed to close out the first set as getting angry would not have helped my cause,” said Jabeur.
“Today I decided to change my game a bit as everyone knows I am doing drop shots and being aggressive was key today.”
Jabeur never looked back once she had got over the loss of the first set.
Her breaking her 20-year-old opponent in the first game of the second set set the tone for the rest of the encounter.
Indeed such was her dominance that Swiatek at one point having been out-witted by a Jabeur drop shot smashed the top of the net angrily with her racquet.
Former world No.1 Karolina Pliskova reached her first Wimbledon quarter-final with a 6-2, 6-3 win over 6-3, 6-1
Russian Liudmila Samsonova.