WIMBLEDON, England — If the high-water mark of adulation for non-Brits on Centre Court at Wimbledon is Roger Federer, the All England Club might have found No. 2 this week.
She sank to her knees in perhaps relief, covered her face with her hands in perhaps disbelief and, when she rose, laughed and laughed. Her laughter felt rare after hearing her speak for months about the Russian invasion of her homeland, Ukraine, and it seemed to illuminate the court until — no, that was just the roof opening at the conclusion of a rainy afternoon and letting the bright light in. The coincidence felt meaningful anyway, and the applause continued as a collective expression of pride.
She then earned more of the crowd’s approval with an answer about what she would be doing after the match.
“Well first of all,” she said, “I’m going to have a beer probably.”
The crowd at Wimbledon has seemed to adopt Svitolina as nearly one of its own, just as the French did at Roland Garros. She’s a worthy choice as a 28-year-old Ukrainian who has used her platform to fundraise and speak out tirelessly on behalf of her country. She is also a new mother, eight months removed from giving birth and four months into a career comeback.
And, care or don’t about geopolitics and the plight of women in the workforce, it’s hard not to appreciate that screaming backhand down the line.
Of all of Svitolina’s admirable qualities, her victory over top-ranked Swiatek highlighted the fact that her tennis might be the best it has ever been. That’s a feat, given that she is a former world No. 3 who had reached two Grand Slam semifinals — both in 2019 at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
She has needed to be at her peak to mow through such a challenging draw.
In part because she received a wild card into the tournament, Svitolina already has faced four Grand Slam champions — she has defeated Venus Williams, Sofia Kenin, Victoria Azarenka and Swiatek. She is the first player to face that many former major champions since Sara Errani at the French Open in 2012 and the fourth wild card to reach a Grand Slam semifinal in the Open era, which began in 1968.
She’ll finally break that pattern against world No. 42 Marketa Vondrousova, the 2019 French Open finalist who upset Jessica Pegula, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, earlier Tuesday with the type of game that gives her opponents nightmares: Pegula led 4-1 in the third set before Vondrousova’s creative shot-making and variety wrong-footed the American.
Svitolina owns a 3-2 record against the Czech, but history has meant little during Svitolina’s run here. She’s playing differently, something Swiatek and Svitolina’s previous opponent, Azarenka, pointed out.
She won 82 percent of points on her first serve Tuesday, broke Swiatek six times and picked on her forehand, producing 14 errors with bold groundstrokes.
“I didn’t remember that she was changing rhythm so much in terms of playing these faster shots sometimes,” Swiatek said. “But I totally get that, why she’s doing that. It totally makes sense. You have to have guts if you want to win these matches.”
Svitolina took her comeback as an opportunity to start fresh, and by fresh she meant spending more time as the aggressor on the court. She has a new team around her and benefited from spending time crafting a slightly new style. Usually when a player begins working with a new coach, there are only a few rushed weeks between the end of the season and the start of the Australian Open to tweak things. Because she was coming out of maternity leave, Svitolina got to take things slowly, month by month.
That combined with the life experiences she collected over the past year to produce a woman who plays more freely, without fear. She has served the second-most aces, 28, at this tournament after world No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka (33).
“I think it’s mixture of everything. Also I think war made me stronger and also made me, like, mentally stronger. Mentally I don’t take difficult situations as like a disaster, you know? There are worse things in life. I’m just more calmer,” Svitolina said. “I think also, because I’m just started to play again, I have different pressures. Of course, I want to win. I have this motivation, like huge motivation, to come back to the top. But I think having a child, and war, made me a different person. I look at things a bit differently.”
Aside from more aggressive tactics, Svitolina is clearly fiercely motivated during her matches. She chases down the extra shot nearly without fail and grunts with effort on groundstrokes as though she’s pushing a boulder. She feels winning is a way she can bring a small moment of relief to Ukrainians supporting her back home. After her triumph over Azarenka, whose home country of Belarus is a key Russian ally, Svitolina saw video of children in Ukraine watching the match and cheering her on.
“This really makes my heart melt seeing this,” she said. “Just happy I could bring little happiness to people of Ukraine.”
She remarked on the court Tuesday that if someone had told her months ago that she would be in the Wimbledon semifinals after beating the world No. 1, she would have told them they are crazy — which is exactly what she told the reporter who asked if she believed she could win the championship Saturday.
More seriously, Svitolina doesn’t want to get ahead of herself. Her husband, tennis player Gaël Monfils, won’t be traveling with their daughter, Skai, to watch Svitolina compete the rest of the way in part because she doesn’t want to change anything she has been doing. She would hardly entertain questions about playing in the final.
“It seems very close, but it’s very far from this,” she said.
One thing she would admit is that she’s happy with what she has done so far, felling four Grand Slam champions, “the players who know how to win,” she said, “how to play pressure moments.”
Svitolina said she was proud of herself, and for that she counts as one of a long and growing list.