Elina Svitolina punches ticket into semifinals of Olympic Tennis at Tokyo 2020

Elina Svitolina of Ukraine clenches her fist during the quarterfinal match with Camila Giorgi of Italy at the Tokyo Olympics. 

Elina Svitolina of Ukraine had her best performance come at a point where she became a semifinalist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Wednesday. The fourth seed had a tough time against Camila Giorgi of Italy but came through in straight sets 6-4, 6-4 on Court Two at the Ariake Tennis Park. It was the first time that Svitolina made the final four and a chance to fight for a medal. 

The two faced for the third time and first in four years when the Italian tied the series. While she didn’t have the advantage of being on grass, the Italian played well through three matches to be in a terrific spot at the Olympics. In her first run, Giorgi beat hard-hitter Jennifer Brady, gold medalist Elena Vesnina and Karolina Pliskova without dropping a set. Svitolina had a harder task to get back to the quarterfinals going three sets in each of her wins. With some experience against the Italian, the fourth seed hoped to get into the last four and make her way closer to a medal. 

She opened the match, breaking the Italian with two breakpoints. The Ukrainian backed it up in the second, edging Giorgi before holding serve and scoring the double break in the third. Svitolina continued to cruise over the Italian, who suffered troubles with defending her offense when it was necessary. To put an end to a lengthy slide, Giorgi dug in during the fifth to hang in against the fourth seed and hold serve. 

After giving up one, Svitolina responded on serve with another hold that made it 5-1 and Giorgi back in the hot seat. The Italian erred a shot wide to bring up set point for the Ukrainian, but a winner on the next point forced deuce instead. The fourth seed pressed her opponent to a difficult side of the court for her to return a shot for a second attempt. Giorgi denied her again with a big forehand that she swung and missed. On the third break, it was the Italian who found her way to secure the AD point and extend the action in the first. 

The Italian added two more to the scoreboard, earning a break and saving a third set point on serve in the ninth that put her a game from tying. The fourth seed experienced a change of pace herself and in the tenth while on serve, she found a way to make her fourth set point count and close out the first in 51 minutes. Both players had 19 unforced errors, but with their moments coming at different points of the set and Svitolina ahead, the Ukrainian knew that gripping on to some consistency would keep Giorgi off her back. 

A break for Svitolina was a good start as the Italian double-faulted on the final point of the first. The 26-year-old consolidated with a hold in the second, but couldn’t pull off the double break in the third. It was there that Giorgi scored a serve to love with help from the Ukrainian, who committed a pair of errors. She struck back well on serve in the fourth and made another notch with breakpoint attempts in the fifth before her last gave her a 4-1 hold. 

Giorgi refused to let her get another one on the board and in the sixth, broke her serve. She held serve with new balls to cut the lead down to a single game on Svitolina. The fourth seed knew how important it was to hold at the business end of the set and scored a serve to love against the Italian to earn her chance at winning the match. Giorgi had a tough time closing out her service game in the ninth, but after blowing a pair of game points, it was an error from the Ukrainian that made it 5-4. 

Final four bound 🇺🇦

No.4 seed @ElinaSvitolina pushes past Camila Giorgi 6-4 6-4 to move into the medal rounds at #Tokyo2020#Tennis | #Olympics #Olympics pic.twitter.com/E0pISYZt7T

— Tokyo Olympics 2020 (@phlemzy_king) July 28, 2021

Svitolina had the opportunity to put herself into the semifinal and on the first point of her serve, she moved the Italian around until she forced an error. A long ball made it 30-0 for the fourth seed, whose forehand then committed a double fault. Another long ball return brought up a match point for Svitolina, who sealed her way into the last four with an ace to win it in 1 hour and 32 minutes.  With just one more match to play before going for a medal, the 26-year-old had to take on Paula Badosa of Spain or Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.