Barbora Krejcikova was inspired by the memory of her mentor Jana Novotna as she battled back to beat former champion Elena Rybakina and reach her first Wimbledon singles final. Krejcikova, winner of the French Open in 2021 but never previously beyond the fourth round here, claimed a 3-6 6-3 6-4 victory on Centre Court to set up a surprise final against Jasmine Paolini. She will now hope to follow in the footsteps of her fellow Czech Marketa Vondrousova, who became the first unseeded winner of the women's singles here 12 months ago, while Rybakina's defeat guarantees an eighth different champion in eight years.
Novotna famously cried on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent after losing the 1993 final against Steffi Graf from a winning position before finally lifting the trophy five years later. She took a teenage Krejcikova under her wing but died of cancer in 2017 aged only 49. Krejcikova became emotional when taking about Novotna in her post-match interview, saying: "I'm thinking about Jana a lot.
I have so many beautiful memories and, when I step on the court here, I'm just fighting for every single ball because that's what I think she would want me to do. "We talked about her matches here. It's been some while so I can't really tell you what it was about.
But we definitely did. I hope she would be proud." Krejcikova would have taken heart from beating Rybakina in both their previous meetings but they were on hard courts and initially it looked like the Kazakh, champion two .