Dominika Cibulkova couldn’t bring together the power of her opponent at the championships at Wimbledon Tuesday. Jelena Ostapenko scored so many winners against the Slovakian taking her down in straight sets 7-5, 6-4 on Court No. 1 at the All England Tennis Club in London. It was the first time the 21-year-old made the semifinals putting herself in a spot to make history for the third time.
The series remained in the hands of the Slovakian prior to their third where one would go into their first Wimbledon semifinal. Cibulkova has defeated the Latvian before on grass taking her down in straight sets at Eastbourne two years ago. With both strong on grass and neither one dropping a set, it was guaranteed that one of them would.
With that being a small notion to both of them, the competition got started with the two on deuce as Ostapenko denied her a clean service. The Latvian scored the AD point on a stretched out crosscourt winner before lobbing the game point away from Cibulkova for the break. The Slovakian scored a break in the second before trying to get back on serve in the third. She did that before adding a second break to her score taking a two-game lead on the 12th seed.
The 29-year-old enacted a stance in front of the court responding very well on the returns before nailing down the winners to Ostapenko who she had running around the court at times. The 12th seed ran back to win two straight avoiding giving up a double break and nailing down the service hold in the sixth. The winners were coming together for Ostapenko who searched for her chance to control the set. While she didn’t get the break in the seventh, holding serve kept her in touch with Cibulkova who was clearly hard to overtake.
The Slovakian hunted down the set but wasn’t getting much as the Latvian shot winners out of reach giving up one point to force the set deep. The effort to get it done helped her offense greatly to break Cibulkova in the 11th before putting it all together with a serve to love to take the set 7-5 in 45 minutes. While her serve wasn’t at a level that she wanted it, Ostapenko having the lead was key to improving the second serve. She clearly had Cibulkova beaten on winners scoring 23 to her four but had more than twice the number of errors to limit going into the second set.
She got a break up in the third taking the lead for the first time in the match but didn’t hold it long as Cibulkova matched her back in the fourth. Just when it looked as if she’d find the groove to get back into the set, her serve dropped giving Ostapenko another break to lead. A hold in the sixth put her back out front with two left to go with the Slovakian in trouble and already a set down. She fought to achieve a break on the Latvian after she lost points on the backhand. It gave Cibulkova a game-winner that put her a game down with the chance to save the set from getting out of hand again.
Ostapenko held firmly in the eighth reaching the chance to serve to love getting it on an ace for a chance to play for the match. The 29-year-old who didn’t have the speed of her opponent struggled on serve with a double fault before getting on the board with a forehand error from the world number 12. She let her back in with another one blowing a double match point chance. A third straight error from Ostapenko handed Cibulkova a sigh of relief but lobbed one high to put the game to deuce. The forehand ruined her chance to break for the win but needed to serve clean to disallow Cibulkova a shot at turning the set around. She scored three good points for winners earning three match points coming on a line drive winning return that ended the match in 1 hour and 21 minutes.
“It was a very tough match,” Ostapenko said to the BBC. “I was just trying to enjoy it because it's really great to be here in the second week and now I’m in the semis and really happy with the way I played. Dominika played well and I was down in the first set and fought till the end. I think I finished kind of confident.”
Ostapenko finished with her game under control despite having 28 unforced errors. The power of getting 32 winners and five aces took those problems down by a significant degree. With only two more to go before trying to become the third woman to win the girl’s and ladies titles at Wimbledon, she’ll take on Angelique Kerber in Thursday’s final four match up.
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