So for the eighth time in eight years, there will be a different name on the Venus Rosewater Dish.
Barbora Krejcikova guaranteed it with her gritty 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 semi-final defeat of 2022 champion and red-hot favourite Elena Rybakina. The Czech will face Jasmine Paolini in Saturday’s Championship match.
The 28-year-old is no newcomer to Centre Court, having won two doubles titles here in 2018 and 2022. Now she’s fast building a singles reputation on the great stage too… and she’s contemplating constructing a Centre Court of her very own, albeit a Lego version. Krejcikova likes to while away the time during rain delays by doing Lego.
"I have many sets,” she smiled. “I even received some from my team last night. I like to do a lot of the architecture ones. I did the Milky Way set a couple of weeks ago so I did the Dobby one. Is there a Centre Court one? If there’s a Centre Court one for me, I’ll do it.”
Smiling was a general theme of her evening press conference following her stunning semi-final win, especially hearing the repeated phrase “you’re into the Wimbledon final”. She was still getting her head around that one.
“It’s very nice to listen to this,” she grinned. “I’m feeling great and super proud.”
Thanks to assorted injuries and illness, Krejcikova came into the current grass court swing without so much as one completed win to her name since January. Now she’s on a six-strong grass streak for the first time in her career, and in this semi-final captured her first ever victory over a top five player at a Grand Slam.
“During the season it was very difficult,” she said. “I have had many difficult periods. I never really imagined that in four weeks I could reach a Wimbledon final, that I can be a different player. But I'm super happy that I was able to fight through everything and that I’m sitting here now.”
It’s three years since she came back from match point down to defeat Maria Sakkari in the first Grand Slam semi of her career, at Roland-Garros. Famously she went on to defeat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the final there.
“I’m definitely enjoying this moment much more than I did in Paris,” she said. “That was more stressful for me. Before this tournament I had a tough period and I told myself that I will try to enjoy everything more.
“I had a lot of good achievements already and I wanted to have more fun than stress about tennis and about the performances. So far I think I’ve been very successful in doing that.”
One hurdle remains between Krejcikova and the Venus Rosewater Dish. She and Paolini have met just once before, in qualifying for the 2018 Australian Open where the Czech won easily – but like Paolini, Krejcikova can’t recall a second of it.
“It's a very long time ago,” she shrugged. “It’s been a great journey for both of us to reach the Wimbledon final.
“I haven’t really watched any of her matches during the tournament, except a little bit today just following the score. I was focusing on my own match. I expect the final to be difficult. I expect a lot of fighting from both sides.”
Meanwhile, she has no doubt that she is a better player than the one who lifted the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen in Paris three years ago.
“I had to improve everything, and develop my game because everybody else was developing their game too. I definitely got better on faster surfaces. It’s great that it looks like I made some progress and that I’m in another final.”
