Unseeded Wimbledon entrant Marketa Vondrousova stuns Ons Jabeur to win title
Marketa Vondrousova wins 2023 Wimbledon ladies' singles final, defeating Ons Jabeur to become lowest ranked winner in history
Unseeded Marketa Vondrousova's historic Wimbledon run has culminated with the Czechia underdog claiming the singles championship.
The left-hander stunned Tunisia's Ons Jabeur 6-4 6-4 to win the Wimbledon women's singles final on Saturday.
The 24-year-old became the first unseeded player to win the Wimbledon women's singles title in the professional era, leaving sixth seed Jabeur as the runner-up for the second successive year.
She was the first unseeded woman to make the final since Billie Jean King in 1963, and the lowest-ranked winner in history at 42nd.
Vondrousova trailed in each set but collected the last four games of the first, then the last three games of the second.
The victory is her first grand slam title in her second final.
She lifted her first grand slam title just a year after she visited Wimbledon as a tourist with her racquet wrist in plaster after a second bout of surgery which she feared might threaten her career.
"When I was coming back, I didn't know what's going to happen, if I can play at that level again," said the 24-year-old.
"On grass, I didn't play well before the injury. I think it was the most impossible grand slam for me to win, so I didn't even think of it.
Vondrousova made the French Open final as a teenager in 2019, losing to Australian Ash Barty.
"I think I'm going to have some beer, it's been an exhausting two weeks," Vondrousova said.
Jabeur was bidding to become the first Arab player to win a grand slam title and the first African woman to win one of the four majors.
The 28-year-old from Tunisia is the only Arab woman and only North African woman to make it that far in singles at any grand slam tournament.
She has now lost all three major finals she has competed in, falling to Elena Rybakina at the All England Club and Iga Swiatek at the US Open last year.
"This is the most painful loss of my career," she said as she fought back tears.
abc.net.au
