2023 Wimbledon Women's Finals 🐢

Vondrousova vs Jabeur

Grass rewards serving, athleticism, and skill, so it’s no surprise that Marketa Vondrousova and Ons Jabeur have wound up in the finals. It feels like Jabeur is the more experienced player here, but they’ve been in an equal number of major finals. Vondrousova was in the finals of Roland Garros in 2019, and Jabeur was in the finals of Wimbledon last year, where she lost a thrilling but crushing three set battle against Rybakina. Jabeur was visibly overjoyed when it seemed like she would win, and the opposite side of the spectrum of emotions was on display when she ultimately lost. I wondered whether she’d lose some of her fire, but Jabeur is a consummate professional and a great entertainer. This past fortnight, Jabeur has been on a roller coaster of a revenge tour. She beat Andreescu from a set down. She beat Kvitova in straights despite trailing the h2h. She managed a three set comeback victory against Rybakina, and now in heroic fashion she has completed another huge come from behind win against Aryna Sabalenka.

The Sabalenka semifinal was highly anticipated, and it delivered for about 2/3 of the match. With Sabalenka up 4-2 in the second, the old Sabalenka emerged. She started to shank balls on her forehand, and this caused her to decelerate a little on that wing. The result was crosscourt shots that landed wide more often than not. She was crushing her backhand until this point, but she started to try to overcook it and send a number of shots wide and long. It wasn’t just a Sabalenka implosion, but once Jabeur got momentum Aryna definitely helped out. Jabeur is back in a familiar spot, and having made the finals the year before puts people in a really decent headspace to start the match. “Unfinished business” can be a real focuser of a motto in sport, and being the sort of veteran in the situation can help as well. Jabeur having Rybakina, Swiatek, and Sabalenka out of the event doesn’t just make her the name favorite, it also makes her the biggest hitter left in the tournament, so this match will likely be about her percentages more than anything else. Can she do it? Big hmm for me.

If you want to believe Jabeur is going to win this final, don’t go watch the Indian Wells match/highlights. The Australian Open also featured a straight set win for Vondrousova, so there are some question marks heading into this match about what Jabeur’s strategy should be. The court conditions in those events are much different, with IW being one of the slowest hardcourt tournaments of the entire season, but Vondrousova looked dominant. She moved early to Jabeur’s shots and was extremely comfortable dealing with the dropshot. One of the earliest notes I had for Jabeur if I were coaching her is not to approach to the forehand wing, and footage of their previous matches echoes this. Vondrousova holds her forehand a long time so it’s tough to read, but she also hits it very well on the run. She’s able to create sharp and short angles crosscourt, and she also can execute the squash shot very well from these spots so it’s tough to get the ball by her.

Unfortunately for my brain’s decision-making process, I also watched Vondrousova dominate things when she had time on her backhand. So there’s the second key for Jabeur : Don’t leave the ball hanging in the court. She shouldn’t be blasting off and trying to force things since Vondrousova is quick and a good defender, but loopy dropshots or slices are a bad plan against Marketa. She holds her swings well and she plays with good variety, and once Jabeur was on defense against the lefty patterns she seemed to struggle to get out of them. Jabeur leans into her backhand which is excellent for redirecting down the line and infusing pace but tends to make it a flatter shot cross-court. This makes the angle she’s playing off of Vondrousova’s forehand go very tight to the net, and balls into the net are the one thing that seem to influence Jabeur’s pace of play and lead to errors and dips in her serve percentage. So key three and four are to play her backhand down the line as often as she can, and take her time. This is likely going to be a long match, and the “oh F am I going to lose again?” thoughts and warm lightheaded feeling will pop up if Vondrousova starts to gain momentum, so Jabeur will want to take her time between points if only just to compartmentalize the results of them.

Vondrousova is a trickier opponent than the odds suggest (-200 for Jabeur), but it does feel like I watched two different tournaments play out in this event. The bottom of the draw was extremely stacked with huge offenses, and the matches were extremely high quality. The top, including the semifinal against Svitolina, seemed more about who could outlast the opponent from the baseline, and despite Swiatek looking like she’s improved significantly on grass, the bottom half feels like it was a stronger event. If Vondrousova had played Sabalenka in set 1, I do not think she would have ended up in a tiebreak. The puzzle of the match is trying to figure out what caused Sabalenka’s meltdown. Vondrousova would have won from that point on as well, but was it the cumulative mental/physical fatigue of having to hit so big for so long against Jabeur that caused the slump? Grass gives Vondrousova less time to deal with Jabeur’s power and serving than she had in Indian Wells (and the Australian Open where Vondrousova won earlier this year also), and when they did meet on grass in Eastourne 2021, Jabeur won a close match in two (6-3, 7-6).

If there’s one hole in Jabeur’s game, it’s her ability to recover to center. When she’s forced to sprint to the sidelines, there is a real tendency to go for big shots down the line on her forehand, and this is not ideal since it causes errors and because Vondrousova is so good at creating the cross-court angle even when she’s on the run or deep in the court. Marketa is serving well, but it’s mostly body serves that are setting her up and Jabeur has pretty good hands. Honestly, I’m not very concrete on who is going to step up in this huge moment, but I expect both to play well. It’s Jabeur who’s displayed the higher level of tennis, but it’s really hard to ignore how effective and frustrating Vondrousova’s game looked against Jabeur.

In the end (because this word salad of conflicting evidence has to end), I am sort of pulling for Jabeur just because I think she’s the best player of this era who doesn’t have a major title, and the joy/relief that would wash over her afterwards would be great to witness. At the same time, I think Vondrousova will be under less pressure, and she’s played tremendous this week. The h2h issue is a concern, but anyone familiar with Jabeur will know that she plays wildly different week to week. The price has moved to -244 by now, but this is not much of an indication of anything because public perception was that Jabeur Sabalenka was the finals. Vondrousova is being overlooked a bit here, but I think Jabeur is slightly better at her best, and will lose the stretches where she lets her emotions move her. The bigger hitter in each set has been winning over the last few rounds, and Jabeur just has more firepower here than Vondrousova. If she remains patient and lets the court speed aid the pace of her shots, she should be able to play a lot of this match from inside the baseline, and get her first major title. Someone in 3 is what I’m comfortable saying, but Jabeur in 3 feels like the most likely outcome.