How do you solve a problem like Marketa? Vondrousova is a riddle waiting in Wimbledon final

If someone other than Marketa Vondrousova is to win Wimbledon on Saturday, they will first have to figure out how to win a tennis match while putting themselves through the mental and physical misery of playing Marketa Vondrousova.

Each time Elina Svitolina returned to her seat she looked a little more perplexed, more drained. With each passing game the left-handed Vondrousova made herself increasingly awkward to face, putting comical spin on her backhand slice, picking obscure angles and covering the court so nimbly that there was no safe space for Svitolina to find, no easy way out.

The looping top-spin on Vondrousova’s forehand refused to slot into Svitolina’s hitting arc. Drop shots would appear unannounced. It made the Ukrainian wonder: do I stand on my heels to receive a deep, bouncing groundstroke, or stay on my toes to anticipate the drop? It was a question she could never fully answer.

“I can’t believe it,” Vondrousova said after winning this semi-final 6-3 6-3, her first ever match on Centre Court. “It was so tough, she’s such a fighter and such a great person. I was crazy nervous, the whole match. I was leading and she came back, so I needed to stay focused and try to fight for every game.”

It is the culmination of a journey for the 24-year-old, back in a grand slam final for the first time since reaching the 2019 French Open final as a barely known teenager, where she lost to the then world No 1 Ashleigh Barty in straight sets. A string of injuries followed and progress stalled, and she watched last year’s Wimbledon on TV wearing a cast. “I never knew whether I could get to this level again,” she said. “I’m just so grateful to be healthy.”

Unseeded and inexperienced here – she had won only one match at Wimbledon before this tournament – she battled through back-to-back three set matches and won this one against the will of a demanding crowd. As a Czech, she represented a country that has supported Ukraine in its plight, but from the moment Svitolina first made the walk to the baseline under the Royal Box to serve, it was made abundantly clear that Centre Court would be behind every swing.

The noise echoed against a closed roof. The environment here is different when the stadium transforms from amphitheatre to greenhouse: it traps humid air which slows down the ball and this suited Vondrousova, a player who grew up on slower clay courts. She raised her game dramatically once the Court One roof closed over her quarter-final match to knock out Jessica Pegula, and her performance here was better still.

The match started evenly enough. Vondrousova broke to go up 3-2 and then saved a break point with one of her customary drop shots. But a moment later she missed a down-the-line winner with the court gaping and Svitolina broke back. Centre Court let out an urgent howl.

Yet that was the beginning of the end. Vondrousova lifted every aspect of herself and rattled off the next seven games, clinching the first set 6-3 and taking charge of the second 4-0.

Along the way she produced touches of magic, like a loose-wristed slap on the run that won a point late in the first set which the partisan crowd were already celebrating. Winners were retrieved from remote corners; delicate spinning lobs made Svitolina turn and watch as they dropped inside the baseline; deep shots followed by drop shots followed by point-killing winners made Svitolina yo-yo back and forth. “She played amazing, great tennis,” Svitolina later said.

And so the loudest cheer of the afternoon was a moment of stubborn resistance, with the match all but done at 4-0 in the second set, when Svitolina scrapped and fought her way into the ascendancy on deuce before crushing a forehand winner with feeling. She went on to break Vondrousova’s serve a moment later, and her streak of lost games was finally over.

Two more followed and it was as if Svitolina had finally found a solution. But too much damage had already been done on the scoreboard, too much of a toll on her legs and her head. At 6-3 5-3, a long backhand confirmed her fate. The crowd rose once more as Svitolina picked up her bag, spun and waved, and then she was gone. Her run is over, but the riddle of Vondrousova goes on to the final unsolved.