Olympics: Elina Svitolina loses to reigning Wimbledon champ in very tight R16 battle
© Getty Images Sport – Matthew Stockman
Elina Svitolina has just exited the Paris Olympics after losing in a very tight battle to reigning Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova in nearly three hours of play.
A day after coming back from a set down to beat world No. 6 Jessica Pegula in the Olympics second round, Svitolina faced another extremely difficult challenge – she had to play against Krejcikova, who entered their round-of-16 clash on a nine-match winning streak.
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And although Svitolina definitely had her chances and wasn’t really that far from beating Krejcikova, the 10th-ranked Czech still escaped with a 7-6 (5) 2-6 6-4 win.
After winning the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Svitolina won’t be winning another medal at this year’s Olympics. Instead, it is Krejcikova who continues her Olympic run and faces next Anna-Karolina Schmiedlova, who upset Jasmine Paolini – the player that the Czech beat in this year’s Wimbledon final.
Barbora Krejcikova
Barbora Krejcikova© Getty Images Sport – Clive Brunskill
How Krejcikova edged out Svitolina?
Before the first set went into a tie-break, Svitolina was twice up by a break but just failed to capitalize. Even in the tie-break, the Ukrainian had an early 3-0 lead before Krejcikova went on to win the next five points before converting her first set point at 6-5 in the tie-break.
However, losing the first set in a heartbreaking way didn’t really seem to impact Svitolina that much since the former world No. 3 responded by winning the second set easily after breaking Krejcikova in the third and seventh games of the set.
After winning the last three games of the second set, Svitolina also started the decider with an early break and a 2-0 lead. But Krejcikova didn’t quit and instead got herself fully back into the set after earning breaks in the fourth and eighth games to overturn the deficit and go 5-3 up.
Just when it seemed that the match was over and that the momentum was on Krejcikova’s side, Svitolina broke back the Czech. But then very disappointingly for Svitolina, she failed to serve out to stay in the match in the 10th game.
OlympicsElina SvitolinaWimbledon
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