Jelena Ostapenko became the first Latvian to reach the Wimbledon singles semi-finals after she subdued Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova 7-5 6-4 on Tuesday.
After more than a week of sizzling 30 degrees Celsius temperatures, the players struggled to find their range on a chilly and blustery Court One, where the ‘feels like’ temperature dipped to around the 14 degrees mark.
Four of the first five games went against serve before 12th seed Ostapenko’s game finally caught fire in the 11th game when she broke Cibulkova to love with a blazing backhand down-the-line winner.
Two successive aces, clocked at 103 and 106 mph, gave the 21-year-old the first set and the 2017 French Open champion tightened her grip on the contest when she ended another flurry of breaks to go 4-2 up in the second.
Cibulkova did her best to try and hang on but the Slovakian was left chasing shadows as Ostapenko blasted a backhand winner on her first match point to reach the last four without dropping a set in this year’s tournament.
She will meet German 11th seed Angelique Kerber for a place in Saturday’s final.