Karolina Muchova is through to her first Wimbledon semi-final at the age of 29 after dismissing former world No.1 Naomi Osaka in straight sets.
The Czech 10th seed held her nerve to produce a 7-6(4), 6-4 win over Osaka, who just two days ago knocked top seed Aryna Sabalenka out of the tournament. Muchova has now reached the last four of every Grand Slam event at some point during her career. The only other female players from her country to achieve this in the Open Era are Hana Mandlikova, Jana Novotna and Karolina Pliskova.
Muchova came into the clash having lost all three of her previous matches played on Court One. She had to show her fighting spirit from the onset by coming back from a break down twice in the first five games played. She managed to get a stronghold in the tiebreaker by winning six of the first eight points to earn a trio of set points. She converted her third. In the second set, Muchova won 14 out of 15 points behind her first serve and didn’t face a break point. She broke Osaka in the penultimate game of the match en route to victory.
“Oh my God, I was nervous,” Muchova said afterwards.
“She’s an unbelievable athlete. So many times we’ve played… a week ago in a tournament against each other. We know each other pretty well at this point.
“I know you can’t lose that focus. You have to still keep going and play every point. If you give her a little chance, she takes it and it goes the other way.”
A telling factor in the match was Osaka’s unforced error count, which was two times higher than her winners (16-8). In contrast, Muchova hit four more winners than errors (14-10).
“I love grass, the season is so short for us so I try to enjoy it.” She said.
Awaiting Muchova in the semi-finals will be Coco Gauff, who is the highest-ranked player left in the draw. The American battled back from a set down to defeat compatriot Jessica Pegula 4-6, 6-3, 6-3. She will also be making her semi-final debut at SW19 this week.
“It feels really special considering the results I’ve had of late and just especially on this surface. It definitely is special,” said Gauff.
“I’m able to relax a bit because I just feel that regardless of how the rest of this tournament goes, I really think I’ve found a bit of a breakthrough on grass.
“Obviously I’m not satisfied. I want to go all the way. Also, at the same time, I’m just looking at the match in front of me and just trying to keep doing better each point.”
Muchova, who already has one title on the grass this year from Bad Homburg, has only won one of her seven previous meetings against Gauff. However, this was their latest meeting on clay in Stuttgart earlier this year.
The women’s semi-finals will take place on Thursday.
AloJapan.com