Kate Middleton avoids awkward Wimbledon final scenario

Marketa Vondrousova and last year’s runner-up, Ons Jabeur, will contest the final, having beaten Ukrainian Elina Svitolina and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, respectively. That means the tournament has avoided the potentially fraught spectacle of hosting two players whose nations are on opposite sides of the war in Ukraine.

While Belarus is not fighting in Ukraine, its President Alexander Lukashenko is among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most steadfast allies, and his government has consistently allowed Russian forces to use Belarusian territory to aid in its illegal invasion.

Lukashenko’s alliance with Putin was behind Wimbledon’s decision to suspend both Russian and Belarusian players from last year’s tournament.

This year, those players have been allowed to compete, but only as neutrals, and only having signed a pledge not to express support for the Russian and Belarusian regimes.

Svitolina and Sabalenka were arguably the favourites to win their semifinals, as the former had just knocked out world number one Iga Swiatek in the quarters, and the latter was leading the WTA’s annual points race. The Belarusian is currently the world number two.

If they’d both won, an awkward situation would have been inevitable whatever the result in the final, with the war hanging over the post-match ceremony.

Svitolina currently has a blanket policy of refusing to shake the hand of any Russian or Belarusian player. That already sparked a controversy earlier in the tournament when she did not shake the hand of Belarusian Victoria Azarenka at the conclusion of their match. The crowd booed Azarenka off the court – a reaction she felt was unfair.

“How disappointed were you with the reaction as you walked off court?” a reporter asked her in her post-match press conference.

“What do you think? What did you think how was the crowd?” Azarenka responded.

“I would imagine you’re very unhappy,” said the reporter.

“No, but what do you think,” she said. “How do you think the crowd was in the end? What’s your opinion?”

“I thought that was very unfair,” said the journalist.

“Hmm. I think we agree on that,” said Azarenka.

Today it was Svitolina’s turn to endure a press conference about her defeat. One of the reporters asked “how bad it would look symbolically” if Princess Catherine had to “give the trophy to a Belarusian”. At this point, Sabalenka had not yet lost.

“To be fair, I didn’t really think about this at all. Right now I’m just not in a good state of mind to reply to these questions,” said Svitolina.

“I will not be here. Yeah, I’m just upset that I’m not playing and not taking that trophy from (the Princess of Wales).”

Kate already made one appearance earlier in the tournament, where she hosted eight-time men’s champion Roger Federer in the Royal Box and cheered on Brits Katie Boulter and Andy Murray.

How the semifinals unfolded

Jabeur already avenged her loss in last year’s final by beating her vanquisher, Elena Rybakina, in the quarterfinals. Her opponent this time, Sabalenka, was even tougher on paper.

Sabalenka projects the sort of raw power, and accompanying angry grunt that sometimes strays into the territory of a roar, that must be terrifying to face from the other end. Clearly the Belarusian loves tennis – she just appears to really, really hate the tennis ball.

She claimed a tight first set in a tiebreak, and was up a break in the second when both players contributed to a game of astonishingly high quality, with practically every point a stunner.

That game ended, however, in less impressive fashion. At deuce, and nervous, Sabalenka let the ball escape from her before serving it, leaving it to roll across the court for a ball girl to retrieve. The crowd laughed – not in a cruel way, though it may have seemed so on court. Sabalenka proceeded to double fault. Soon after her break was gone.

With the fans behind her, Jabeur never lost the momentum from that moment onward, and ended up winning the match 6-7 6-4 6-3.

“I’m very proud of myself, because maybe old me would have lost the match today and gone back home already. But I’ve kept digging really deep and finding the strength,” she said in her post-match interview.

This has been a recurring them in her remarks throughout the tournament: growing mental strength, aided by her work with a specialist coach.

“I’m learning to transform the bad energy to good. So the anger I had from the first set, I tried to stay focused. You know, some things I have no control over, she can ace many times, she can hit the big serves, and that’s frustrating. But I’m glad that I’m accepting it and digging deep,” she explained.

“I’ve already lost two times to (Vondrousova) this year. So I’m going for my revenge again I guess. So far it’s working!”

Earlier in the day Vondrousova, the unseeded world number 42, thoroughly dominated Svitolina, beating her 6-3 6-3. The scoreline flattered the loser.

That was no small feat, given Svitolina’s impressive list of victims throughout the earlier stages of the tournament, five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams, former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, two-time grand slam champion Victoria Azarenka and world number one Iga Swiatek among them.

Both semifinalists had made astonishingly successful comebacks to the sport: Svitolina from having a daughter late last year, Vondrousova from a run of catastrophic injuries.

Hence the growing significance of a tattoo above the latter’s right elbow, which reads: “No rain, no flowers.”

Its meaning is clear enough. The rough times in life, the rain, are necessary. They add sweetness and appreciation to the highs that follow, if you can endure. That is exactly what Vondrousova, at just 24, has done.

Before this tournament, she had never made it past the second round of Wimbledon. Now she’s in the final, her first at a grand slam since being the young runner-up at Roland Garros back in 2019 (she also has an Olympic silver medal).

And form on grass was her smallest obstacle. Three times since 2016, Vondrousova has been sidelined for extended periods by injury, once for an elbow and twice for her wrist. The most recent of those setbacks came last year, forcing her to miss three of the four grand slams.

After her win over Svitolina, Vondrousova confessed that her persistent injuries had caused immense self-doubt.

“You never know if you can be at that level again,” she said.

“And I’m just so grateful to be here, and to be healthy enough to play tennis again.”

A year ago, she was sitting in the stands at Wimbledon as a spectator with a cast on her wrist, watching her friend, fellow Czech Miriam Kolodziejova, in the qualifying rounds.

“It was after the surgery. I didn’t play for almost six months, so it was very tough,” she said.

During that period she was also dropped by her sponsor, Nike, after four seasons, adding another level of financial pressure.

Asked “how far away” this sort of run at Wimbledon had seemed back then, she was blunt.

“I mean, here on grass it was almost impossible, because I didn’t play many matches on grass before. By best one was the second round,” said Vondrousova.

“For me, when it was clay or hard court, maybe I would say it’s possible. But grass was impossible for me. It’s crazy that this is happening.”

You would never have known she considered grass “impossible” while watching her dismantle Svitolina. The Ukrainian, who came into the match under special pressure to represent her war stricken country, never looked comfortable.

Perhaps it was partly down to having played one game too many – after beating Swiatek, the last in a string of upsets, Svitolina may have played her final already. But the quality of play from Vondrousova was also an immense factor.

“She’s a very tricky opponent. She gets a lot of balls back,” Svitolina said afterwards.

“I’m just not very happy with the way that I dealt with the situations, with some points at the beginning as well. She played really well. Dealt with my game better today.”

The key sequence of the match came deep in the second set, with Vondrousova up a set and two breaks. She in fact led 4-0 and 40-0 on serve before Svitolina finally managed to muster a serious comeback, after exactly an hour on court.

“I just tried to fight. It was a lot of people, a semifinal, so you don’t have time to just let it go. I tried to fight,” she said.

“I guess it was also a nervous moment for Marketa because, playing a semifinal, it is never easy to finish the match.”

Incredibly, Svitolina broke back twice to bring the set back on serve. But she couldn’t sustain the push and, from 3-4 down, never won another game.

“She played great,” she said of Vondrousova.

“She was really patient today, and was playing really great points until the very end.”

The aforementioned tattoo is far from Vondrousova’s only one – both arms are something of a canvas. She’s previously said she got her first ink for her 16th birthday, and has “three or four tattoo artists” she often visits.

Today a journalist asked whether she will get a new tattoo, should she win the final.

“I have a bet with my coach. If I win a grand slam, he’s going to get one. So I hope I will,” Vondrousova replied with a smile.

“We’ll see what happens and what I’ll do. For me, it’s also art. I just like it, I appreciate the people that do this.”

She’s been creating some artistry of her own lately. Perhaps there’s still one masterpiece left.