Wimbledon 2023: Elina Svitolina beats World No.1 Iga Swiatek to book semi-final berth

Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina continued her fairytale return to tennis after making it through to the Wimbledon 2023 women’s singles tennis. She won the match 7-5, 6-7 (5-7), 6-2 on Centre Court in two hours and 50 minutes.

Even as it was her second Wimbledon semis appearance after the one in 2019, overall, she advanced to the semi-final for the third time in a Grand Slam.

The first set was all about earning breaks of serve. Swiatek showed dominance by breaking Svitolina’s serve two times. On an ideal day, it should be enough for the top-ranked player to win a set, but not this time. Svitolina broke her opponent’s serve twice to win the opening set.

Svitolina earned three more service breaks in the second set, but this time around, Swiatek managed to drag her into the tie-break. Thereafter, it was neck and neck for quite some time before Swiatek



somehow won the set and took the match into a tie-break.

In the third set, Svitolina kept her calm and earned an early break to take a 3-1 lead. The Ukrainian did not stop there as she earned a double break to make it 4-1 and put Swiatek under immense pressure. Svitolina kept growing from strength to strength and churned out an ace to hold her serve and make it 5-1 in the final set.

Swiatek stayed in the game by holding her serve at 2-5, but Svitolina did not let her get a foothold back into the game. Swiatek pulled off 37 winners, 12 more than her opponent. But the World No.1 made 40 unforced errors and that turned out to be a crucial factor in the context of the game.

Svitolina will now be facing Czech Republic’s Marketa Vondrousova in the semi-final. Vondrousova is also in excellent form, having defeated World No.4 Jessica Pegula 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.