Marketa Vondrousova at the time of her victory in the Wimbledon final, against Ons Jabeur, in London, July 15, 2023. GLYN KIRK / AFP
Czech player Marketa Vondrousova won the Wimbledon tennis tournament in London on Saturday July 15 by winning the final of the competition (6-4, 6-4) against her Tunisian opponent Ons Jabeur.
Marketa Vondrousova, ranked 42nd in the world, becomes the first non-seeded player to win this Grand Slam tournament. Ons Jabeur, still in search of a Grand Slam title, lost her third major final, after those of Wimbledon and the US Open in 2022.
Marketa Vondrousova, 24, had reached the French Open final in 2019 but had won just two matches on grass in her career arriving at Wimbledon this year. With this victory, she will reach the best place of her career in the ranking on Monday: 10th. Until then, his best ranking was 16th, reached in 2019.
She was the first non-seeded Wimbledon finalist of the Open era (since 1968) and the first, since American Billie Jean King in 1963. While playing her twenty-first Grand Slam tournament, Marketa Vondrousova became the third Czech to win at Wimbledon after Jana Novotna and Petra Kvitova. Before the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, Martina Navratilova had also won Wimbledon nine times in singles (twice as a Czechoslovakian and seven times as an American).
Jabeur committed a lot of unforced errors
On Saturday, Ons Jabeur got the game off to a perfect start, earning the break straight away to break away 2-0, but they couldn’t keep the advantage, neither this time nor when they led 4-2 again. The 28-year-old Tunisian missed the next four games and the set, committing many unforced errors, such as the one that gave Vondrousova the break point at 4-4: a first smash with little pressure on her opponent, followed by a high forehand volley out of bounds.
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For the first time in front of the score, the Czech thus served for the set at 5-4… And did not hesitate to conclude with a shutout. On its way, Marketa Vondrousova managed the break at the start of the second set, but under an ovation from the public Ons Jabeur lined up three games (double break) to regain the lead, at 3-1.
Serious but without sparks, Marketa Vondrousova came back to 3-3. As in the first set, the two players came to 4-4, where Ons Jabeur offered the break to Marketa Vondrousova who, at 5-4, served this time to win the match. She offered herself three match points in a row. After spoiling the first on a double fault, she won the second on a volley.