Elena Rybakina wins Wimbledon after fightback against Ons Jabeur

07/09/2022

Jabeur was playing with such confidence, it felt hard at times to imagine that this was her first grand slam final. She consolidated the break to love, pulling Rybakina to-and-fro at will, following up forehand winners on the return with slice backhand passing shots that sent puffs of white smoke up off the line. Rybakina mounted a gutsy defence at 3-2 to avoid being broken for a second time but that defence always felt brittle. At 5-3, the pressure started to mount, Rybakina’s frustration became more visible and her confidence wavered, hesitating over the simplest of forehands into the net before a double fault and two more errors saw Jabeur take the first set.

Rybakina was in danger of being lost to the occcasion, undone by her own mistakes as much as Jabeur’s brilliance, but she rallied at the start of the second set. Having won just four points on Jabeur’s serve up to that point, a fierce forehand return earned break point before Jabeur’s wayward smash handed Rybakina the early break. She had to fight doggedly to keep it in the following game, saving another break point with the sort of big first serve that had been custom this fortnight but was far more erratic here.

The momentum had turned though, and there was a spring back in Rybakina’s step. She started to interpret the disguise on Jabeur’s slices and find that extra yard of pace to reach each drop shot, and when Rybakina came under pressure on her own serve again at 2-1, this time she held her nerve, saving three more break points in a game that lasted almost ten minutes. Predictably, it was a service winner that finally hauled her over the line and it was pivotal in the match. The following game, Jabeur succumbed to a rare streak of errors, throwing her racket up in the air in disbelief as even her trusty slice backhand betrayed her, while Rybakina’s forehand was gathering venom and accuracy with every point. She broke for a second time in the set to take a 4-1 lead and the rest was a formality.

Rybakina carried that momentum into the decider. A forehand winner was initially called out but Hawk-Eye showed it had caught the line by a couple of millimetres. A deft backhand volley sealed the break and Jabeur crouched down in anger after Rybakina held serve to take a 2-0 lead, winning a battle of slices and beating the Tunisian at her own game. The crowd did their best to rally Jabeur and her box leap to their feet after a brilliant drop shot helped bring up three break points at 2-3, but Rybakina refused to buckle, winning the next five points to hold. It would prove to be Jabeur’s last chance. The following game, Rybakina produced a series of bludgeoning but deadly precise forehands that Jabeur couldn’t deflect any longer. Power won the day.

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