Supercharged Svitolina stuns Swiatek

LONDON — Even the world's best players are not immune to crippling nerves as Iga Swiatek discovered when her Wimbledon dreams were turned to dust in a 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-2 quarterfinal defeat to Ukrainian wild card Elina Svitolina on Tuesday.

Svitolina, who returned to the tour in April after giving birth to her daughter last October, might have been facing an opponent who was riding high on a 14-match winning streak but she never stopped believing even when she was on the receiving end of some brutal shots from the four-time Grand Slam champion.

After almost three hours of nerve-jangling drama, Svitolina gave her homeland something to cheer about when she pulled off the biggest upset of this year's championships.

"I don't know what is happening right now in my head. It's just really unbelievable," a beaming Svitolina told the crowd after setting up a lastfour showdown with the Czech Republic's Marketa Vondrousova.

"At the beginning of the tournament if somebody would tell me that I will be in the semifinal and beating the world number one, I would say they are crazy!"

"I'm happy I could bring a little happiness to people in Ukraine."

Swiatek, who was coming off claiming her fourth Grand Slam title at the French Open last month, felt the change in the way Svitolina smacked balls over the Centre Court net. That included a stretch from the end of the first set and start of the second when Svitolina won 20 of 22 points.

"She played with more freedom and more guts. Sometimes, she really just let go of her hand," Swiatek said, pantomiming a forehand, "and she played really, really fast."

Svitolina said the win against Swiatek to those against seven-time major champion Venus Williams in the first round, 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin in the third, and two-time Australian Open champ Victoria Azarenka in the fourth.

There is definitely a sense of urgency with all of this.

"It's less years that I have in front than behind me. I have to go for it. I don't have time to lose anymore. I don't know how many years I will be playing," Svitolina said. "You practice for these moments, for these big moments."

And for the kinds of moments that come after she leaves the court.

On Tuesday, Svitolina FaceTimed with daughter Skai, who is at home in Monte Carlo with Monfils and the new grandparents.

"She was really distracted with her ice cream, so I was not the priority there," Svitolina said. "She is still at this age when she doesn't care if I win, if I lose."

There are, naturally, those who do care. A lot. She only returned to the tour three months ago.

"Also, because I just started to play again, I have different pressures," Svitolina said after kneeling down, then covering her face with her hands, when Swiatek missed one last forehand at Centre Court. "Of course, I want to win. I have this motivation, like huge motivation, to come back to the top. But I think having a child — and war — made me a different person. I look at the things a bit differently."

The early exchanges did not exactly go Svitolina's way as she found herself 4-2 down in the opening set and she struggled to get her serve going in blustery conditions on Centre Court, leaving Swiatek to edge into a 5-3 lead.

But the momentum suddenly swung Svitolina's way as from 0-30 down on her serve in the ninth game, she went on to win 16 of the next 18 points to bag the first set and leave a shell-shocked Swiatek wondering what had gone wrong.

That sequence included breaking Swiatek's serve twice in succession, with the Polish top seed surrendering the first of those to love with a double fault.

After Swiatek guided a backhand volley into the tramlines to hand Svitolina the set, the players had to endure a 20-minute break as the roof was closed to shut out the dark clouds hovering over Centre Court.

That interlude gave Swiatek a chance to reevaluate her tactics and she came back to break Svitolina for a 2-1 lead in the second set.

Swiatek's 28-year-old rival, however, kept breathing down her neck and made it all square at 3-3 by pounding some ferocious ground-strokes from the baseline.

Swiatek earned two more break points in the ninth game but once those chances were missed neither player could break the deadlock and they headed into the tiebreak.

Svitolina made a fast and furious start to jump into a 4-2 lead but Swiatek refused to panic and kept faith with her fearsome forehand to rattle her rival.

A backhand error handed Swiatek the set and many thought Svitolina's moment to shine had come and gone. But, having already beaten three Grand Slam champions in the run-up to her showdown with Swiatek, Svitolina had gained an appetite for mauling more celebrated opponents and she was not going to let the top seed stand in her way as she targeted a place in the Wimbledon semifinals for the second time in four years.

Svitolina broke for a 2-1 lead and then blew a hole in the aura around Swiatek, whose 14-match winning streak included her run to a third French Open title, after grabbing a double break two games later.

There was no coming back for Swiatek from that gaping abyss and a forehand into the net handed Svitolina a remarkable win.

Agencies