Jasmine, after a match that was not pretty but very intense, beats the Russian in three sets and will play for the Cincinnati title against the Polish player
A few days ago she was in crisis, now she’s in the final of a WTA 1000 tournament. Jasmine Paolini’s character no longer surprises anyone, except her opponents, who find themselves facing a determined and fearless winner from one day to the next. It’s as if the moments of crisis never happened. The Italian beat Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova in three sets in the Cincinnati semifinals (6-3, 6-7, 6-3 in 2 hours and 19 minutes) at the end of a match that seemed to be slipping away quickly into Jasmine’s arms, but which the Tuscan complicated with a service game, the one to close the match, which she failed to take advantage of and which effectively cost her the second set. This is Jasmine’s ninth career final, her third in a 1000 tournament, after Dubai and Rome this year. She won both. Tomorrow at midnight, Jasmine will face Poland’s Iga Swiatek, who swept aside Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina (7-5, 6-3) in the first semifinal. Iga is fresh from her Wimbledon victory and seems reborn in recent weeks. The match will be a rematch of the 2024 Roland Garros final, where the Polish player, who was a true Martian on earth at the time, prevailed. Paolini is not the favorite this time either, but who knows: the difference between the two is perhaps smaller than it was 14 months ago.
The Italian, seeded number 7, dominated the match until 6-3 5-4 and service against her opponent Kudermetova, who had reached the semifinals with the wind in her sails. The Russian plays really well, especially when she is on form, and the outcome of this match was far from a foregone conclusion. There were fears that Jasmine would be tired after her three-set battle against Coco Gauff and the doubles semifinal she lost a few hours earlier. None of this happened. Paolini, up to that point, was simply perfect, almost surgical: very few errors, all the long rallies won, not even a break point conceded. Jasmine, as against Gauff, waited for her moment to strike and did so mercilessly. Just look at the first set: both players’ service games went smoothly, but in the eighth game, Jasmine suddenly raised her level on the Russian’s serve, breaking her serve and then closing out the first set without any problems in the next game. In the second set, Jasmine kept her foot on the gas, with a break in the fifth game that seemed to have sealed the match. She dominated until 5-4 and serve, where Jasmine served without conceding a single break point. Then, suddenly, a blackout. A terrible service game, and it was 5-5. Completely out of the blue. Kudermetova, a shrewd and experienced player, realized that it was time to pounce on her dazed prey, and she did so brilliantly: she dominated the tiebreak and, unexpectedly, the match went to a third set. The battle resumed, but not before Sara Errani offered words of encouragement to her doubles partner. “Start again from 0-0, play point by point. Think about yourself, she’s making fewer mistakes now, but you just have to think about yourself and your game. Be decisive and take risks, point by point,” Sara tells Jasmine. The battle resumes, and Paolini does what her friend and fellow battler has suggested: reset everything and start again, one step at a time. The break, this time decisive for the Italian, comes in the sixth game. The Russian has three chances to level the score in the next game, but this time it’s not to be. Paolini is in the final, and now she has her rematch against Swiatek.
