Marta Kostyuk surges past Jasmine Paolini and into the Wimbledon semifinals

THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, London — Marta Kostyuk is in a sweet spot as she marches on to the Wimbledon semifinals, after a 6-3, 6-2 win over 2024 finalist Jasmine Paolini Wednesday.

“Winning here was not even in the plans today, I just wanted to go out, enjoy it,” Kostyuk said in her on-court interview after the match.

The 24-year-old is in the rare space tennis players dream of where a positive mental outlook is making space for her game to shine. Kostyuk has been playing excellently since the start of the clay-court season, where she went 16-1 and made her first Grand Slam semifinal at the French Open.

But her fine play had little bearing on how she thought she would perform at Wimbledon.

She’d never made it past the third round here, went 0-3 on grass last season and had such a bad week of practice leading up to the tournament that at one point she turned to her coach, Sandra Zaniewska, and asked her honestly if she thought her game even suited grass.

“She said, 100 percent,” Kostyuk said.

Kostyuk accepted that sliver of hope and clung on, expecting nothing but giving it a shot anyways.

The result has been free-flowing, powerful tennis that has taken Kostyuk into her second straight Grand Slam semifinal. She awaits either Linda Nosková or Elise Mertens in the next round.

Kostyuk’s combination of zero expectations and an all-court game anchored by forceful groundstrokes make her a danger to any opponent. Her win against Paolini was straightforward. She dictated off her first serve with her big hitting and took advantage of Paolini’s lapses in focus, punishing her second serves. Paolini had eight winners to 25 unforced errors. Kostyuk mostly had to remain steady.

That isn’t always an easy task for the Ukrainian. Kostyuk credits her unexpected success on grass to her mental outlook.

“I don’t know. I think just really being kinder to myself and just being open to try,” she said in a news conference earlier this week, when asked how she managed to figure out playing on grass.

“First few days I was really in some sort of desperation, ’cause I felt like no matter what I do on this surface, I’m going to fail. It was difficult to just handle this, you know, and enjoy and just try to give myself the best chance.

“It worked out, I guess.”

As for Paolini, Wimbledon was the best run she’s had in a year full of struggle. The 30-year-old hadn’t won back-to-back matches since the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in March before rebounding after losing her first set at Wimbledon 6-0 to American Robin Montgomery.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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