The Wimbledon ladies champion will be crowned on Centre Court on Saturday afternoon where we know that a new name will be added to the dish handed out to the winner as Barbora Krejcikova takes on Jasmine Paolini for the grass Grand Slam title.
These two women were both unlikely finalists when the tournament started but they have navigated their way through the draw and are now two sets away from taking the title from another surprise winner last year in Marketa Vondrousova.
Barbora Krejcikova
I think it is fair to say that for much of her career Barbora Krejcikova was pigeonholed as a doubles specialist but then she made a major breakthrough when she won the French Open three years ago and she was classed as something of a clay court specialist but she has put those people right over the course of this fortnight and is now a couple more sets away from winning her second major title in as many Grand Slam finals which would be some achievement.
The Czech star has bookended her campaign with three set matches but nobody can claim she doesn’t deserve to be here as she has beaten three top 16 players in the last three matches. If you had doubts over where character she answered those when she came from a set down to the 2022 winner Elena Rybakina to come through to this final. Her battling qualities and composure on court are seen as assets which could serve her very well in this final.
Jasmine Paolini
This has been an incredible couple of months for Jasmine Paolini. She made her first major final at the French Open at the start of June and then proved that she could go well on grass too when she reached the semi-finals at Eastbourne before embarking on a wonderful run at Wimbledon. Before she arrived at Eastbourne, Paolini had never won a main draw tour match on grass but now she is looking as comfortable as anyone on the surface.
Paolini has been involved in a couple of marathon matches in the last two rounds. The positive is that her battling spirit and fighting intent has got her through those encounters but the potential negative is that you wonder how much she has got left in the tank. She didn’t offer much in the French Open final but it should be remembered that she played Iga Swiatek who is pretty much unbeatable on clay. This is a more favourable matchup for the Italian I think it is fair to say.
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Head-to-head
These two have only ever met on one previous occasion which was a while ago in qualifying for the Australian Open in 2018. Barbora Krejcikova won losing just three games in the match but how much we can take from that given that it was six years ago and on a hard court in the early stages of an event we might only find out at the end of this one. This will be the first time they have played on grass and in a final of any kind so we’re not going to get much of a clue from history.
Betting
I think we are in for a very entertaining final here. I am actually a little surprised that Barbora Krejcikova is the favourite for this match because Jasmine Paolini is the better player of the two but it might be that the Italian confessing that she is going to be very nervous hasn’t helped her price in this final. That puts me off backing her to be fair but I think she’ll soon settle down. This isn’t her first dance in a Grand Slam final so a few games in I expect her to get her game working.
Both of these women have shown their battling qualities in this tournament. They both dropped the first set in their semi-final and then came on strong to get the job done and I wouldn’t be surprised if this one goes the distance because the loser of the first set raises her game to get back into it. I like these aggressive player against the solid campaigner type of match and it might be that eventually the fewer errors of Krejcikova proves too much but I think Paolini makes a real game of it first. I like over 22.5 games as a result here.
Tips
Back Over 22.5 games for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Unibet
