Is two hours sufficient to accept an impossible truth?
When Marketa Vondrousova faced the global media, almost exactly 120 minutes after lunging for the winning shot that sealed her Wimbledon crown, her face bore two expressions: joy, of course, in the smile she could not dislodge, but also the look of a person who knows something to be true, and yet cannot believe it.
In every moment as she spoke, the constant switchback between the two was writ large – true, impossible, true, impossible… It will be days, maybe weeks, before the 24-year-old Czech will be able to take on board the delirious reality.
With just one grass court match win to her name before this Fortnight, she is now the first unseeded woman to win Wimbledon. Even Vondrousova herself is still trying to make sense of the path she walked to magic.
“I was just trying to win a couple of matches here,” she said, the words tumbling over one another as she reached for a rational explanation. “It was the most impossible Grand Slam for me to win, so I didn’t even think of it.
“This time last year I was injured with a cast on my left wrist and came here to watch my best friend play Qualifying. I was a tourist. When I was coming back I didn’t know if I could play at this level again.
“I didn't start the final well. But I was so calm. I felt really good. On match point I couldn't breathe. Crazy nervous. I was thinking to myself, ‘Just be over’. Everything is on you. Then – just relief.
“Nobody would have said that I even have a chance to win. It’s such a crazy journey. I can’t believe it still.”
It was all a wonderful contrast to the left-hander’s only previous Grand Slam final experience, at Roland-Garros 2019, when Ashleigh Barty won her own maiden Slam title for the loss of just four games.
“I was 19 and I just remember it was such a stress,” recalled Vondrousova. “I wanted to do well. It was a big thing at home. Everybody was talking about it.
“She just crushed me. It was a very fast match and I didn't even enjoy it. I was very sad after. I just told myself, if this happens again, it’s such a big achievement that I have to enjoy the moment, even if I lose.”
But of course, she did not lose – although up in the players' box, for much of the time her husband of 364 days, Stepan Simek, could barely look.
“He’s like this all the time,” grinned Vondrousova. “When I came up into the box [after winning], he cried. Then I saw him after and he cried a lot. I think he cried on our wedding day also but that’s it through the eight years we’ve been together.
“It's an amazing feeling that I have my husband here. My little sister came also on Friday. I'm just very happy to share with the people I have here because in Paris it was a bit sad. I couldn't hug them. Now this happened. Sharing it with them is amazing.”
Yes, yes. But what of the really important family figure in all this – Frankie the cat, at home in Prague with their emergency catsitter?
“I’m going to buy her some good fish,” Vondrousova pledged, before adding helpfully: “I think she doesn’t really care what’s happening here.”
Well, no. All cats on the planet are disdainful in this way. When Vondrousova brings home her replica of the Venus Rosewater Dish, doubtless Frankie will imagine it to be a new food bowl of some sort.
No, Frankie. Definitely not. You may chow down on your celebratory “good fish” out of your regular bowl, while Marketa and Stepan stare in wonder at the trophy so many legends have won before her, and remind each other that at Wimbledon 2023 she made the impossible into reality.
The Championships 2024 will take place from July 1 – 14 2024 and the Wimbledon Public Ballot will open in mid-September. Make sure you’re one of the first to hear about tickets for next year’s Championships by signing up to myWimbledon.
