Jasmine Paolini celebrates her first career victory at Wimbledon. In her magical 2024, the Tuscan finally manages to remove the zero from the successes box at the Championships, beating the Spanish Sara Sorribes Tormo in two sets, number 55 in the world rankings, with the score 7-5 6-3 after one hour and thirty-seven minutes of play. In the next round the Italian will face the Belgian Greet Minnen, who won on her debut against the British Watson.
A match peppered with too many unforced errors by the Tuscan (thirty-six). Instead, the winners of the number seven in the world were thirty-three compared to the twelve of the Spanish. Paolini obtained 69% of the points with the first, while she suffered too much with the second (39%).
Uphill start to the match for Paolini, who immediately gives up her service at the start in a first game studded with too many errors by the Italian. Jasmine’s reaction, however, comes in the fourth game with the Italian getting a counter break point and takes advantage of it immediately. In the eighth game Paolini gets two break points and on the second Sorribes Tormo shoots her backhand badly out. It seems like a closed set and instead the world number seven has a sudden empty passage, granting the unexpected counterbreak to the Spanish player. In the eleventh game a lucky ribbon helps Jasmine to save a delicate break point and then in the next game she closes on the second set point with the volley making it 7-5.
At the start of the second set, Paolini immediately found herself down 0-40, but managed to get out of it with three winners, including a fine drop shot on the third break point. Having escaped the danger, the Tuscan broke the Spaniard’s serve in the second and fourth games, flying to 4-0. It seems to be over but instead Paolini completely loses his game and Sorribes Tormo thanks him, with the Spanish player recovering both breaks of disadvantagetaking advantage of an endless series of errors by the Tuscan. The twists and turns are not over, because Paolini suddenly finds herself and takes the lead to 0-40, going back ahead by a break. Tuscany closes 6-3 and can finally celebrate his first success on the London grass.
