For a refresher on what all the metrics in this writeup mean, click here.
Of the 4 players left in the Wimbledon women’s draw, just 1 is in the Top 4 in Clutch Factor over Expected per Point. And that is #1 Elena Rybakina, the tournament favorite. Overall, these semifinals – like the rest of the women’s draw – are fairly wide open, especially in the bottom half. We look at the women’s semifinals by looking at how our models evaluated each of their journeys through the draw and end with a prediction for each match.
(4) Elena Rybakina vs (31) Barbora Krejcikova
By CFOE, this is a matchup of the top 2 remaining players in the Wimbledon women’s draw, with Rybakina first and Krejcikova fifth overall. If we removed players who retired from matches, and therefore do not have their losses included in the dataset, Krejcikova moves into second position.
Between the two players, there has been a stark difference in efficiency working through the draw. Each player has gone up a set before having their opponent retire partway through the second set once. Outside of those matches, Krejcikova has played 707 points to Rybakina’s 482. That is a massive difference. In fact, Rybakina has only played one match that had more points than Krejcikova’s shortest match, her 4th-round win over Danielle Collins. Add to that Krejcikova’s participation in the doubles tournament, and you have a fairly significant rest advantage towards Rybakina, who would already have been the favorite.
Krejcikova’s run through the draw almost ended at the very beginning. In her first-round match against Veronika Kudermetova, she was pushed to the limit, pulling out a 7-6(4) 6-7(1) 7-5 victory. With a fairly normal CFOE performance on return, her CFOE rating on serve was a massive 9.24, stemming largely from her saving 14 break points. In fact, her Excitement Index on serve was higher than it was on her returns in each of her first two matches. But since then, she has settled in brilliantly. She has come alive behind her serve, with a Serve Excitement Index over 1.5 standard deviations below the mean (93rd percentile performance) in each of her last two matches. And she has been breaking just enough to ride out whatever happens on serve. But she will probably need to do better than that to have a chance against the dominant Elena Rybakina.
Elena Rybakina has cruised through the draw. Her Excitement Index on serve has been below the mean in all but one of her matches, and her Excitement Index on return has been above the mean in all of her matches. This shows a player who is locking down her own service games and putting pressure on opponents. This pattern typically leads to dominant wins, and Rybakina has seen 3 of her own out of 4 completed matches. When healthy, this has been Rybakina’s consistent pattern over the entire tour, leaving her as one of the top favorites coming into the draw and, now that Jelena Ostapenko is out of the tournament (courtesy of Krejcikova), Rybakina is now a big favorite at 42% to win the title.
Prediction: Rybakina in 2
The Dweck Sports Match Simulator predicts 2.39 sets and over 67% to win this match. If Rybakina gets out well, this one might be over quickly.
(7) Jasmine Paolini vs Donna Vekic
This semifinal is a story of two players who never expected to be here. Paolini has had a major breakthrough this year, winning her first Masters 1000 title in Dubai and following that up with a Roland Garros final. She has come out of Coco Gauff’s quarter of the draw, busted up thanks in large part to Emma Navarro, who Paolini beat soundly in the quarterfinals. Donna Vekic is unseeded and in her first career Grand Slam semifinal after a series of injuries led to a desire to quit tennis as recently as Roland Garros this year. She has hung tough and played well through multiple very difficult matches to arrive at this stage, coming out of Aryna Sabalenka and Qinwen Zheng’s quarter, neither of whom made the second round.
A lot of Paolini’s success at this tournament can be attributed to very good play behind her serve and timely returning. She has also had a little bit of luck, especially with Madison Keys injuring her hamstring when up 5-2 in the 3rd set and retiring at 5-5. Unfortunately, due to Keys’s retirement, we do not have complete data for that match. We do, however, know that Paolini was majorly threatened and the Excitement Index numbers for that match were high. Behind her serve, Paolini has outshone her diminutive frame, with Excitement Averages below the mean in all but one of her completed matches. Behind her return, however, Paolini has not put up Excitement Index numbers quite that good, but her CFOE rating on return has been off the charts. This shows very clutch, well-timed performances, backed up by the fact that she has converted at least 50% of her break points in every match so far. Typically, CFOE ratings tend to regress to the mean.
Like Paolini, Donna Vekic has been impressive behind her serve. Her Serve Excitement has been below average in all five of her matches and at least 1 standard deviation below the mean (84th percentile performance) in 4 of them. She has also piled on the pressure on return, including the 3rd-best single match return performance of the first week of the main draw in her 2nd-round match against Erika Andreeva. But in big spots, she has been the opposite of Paolini. In 3 matches, she has had a Return CFOE rating below 0, compared to Paolini with 3 performances rated above 7. This shows that she has created a lot of opportunities for herself but squandered most of them. Again, though, CFOE ratings tend to regress to the mean.
Prediction: Vekic in 3
This is an incredibly tight match. We have Vekic’s Win Probability at 51%. But I think that when it comes down to it, Vekic will create the right opportunity at the right time. It’s just a matter of whether she can seize it, and I think she will.
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