The 29-year-old from Tuscany defeated Coco Gauff, the American world No 2, in straight sets to claim her second WTA 1000 title, following last year’s victory in Dubai,  and her first on clay.

The sixth-seeded Paolini broke early in both sets and refused to relinquish the initiative, keeping her error count low and the quality of her ball-striking high as she rode the energy of a raucously partisan crowd to emulate Raffaella Reggi’s 1985 triumph. 

True to form, she did it with a combination of smiles and steel, her rare setbacks greeted with a broad grin, her frequent successes with a clenched fist and a snarl of self-exhortation. Powerless to stem the tide, Gauff defiantly saved one match point with a rifled backhand winner, but she was merely delivering the inevitable. Moments later, Paolini delivered a stinging first serve to get the party started in earnest.

And what a party. The stadium DJ, no stranger to the volume controls throughout a memorable fortnight for Italian tennis, amped up the sound to deafening levels. With the champion’s mother, Jacqueline Gardiner, dancing in the stands and the Italian president Sergio Mattarella beaming his approval, Sara Errani, Paolini’s doubles partner, joined the fevered celebrations enveloping Campo Centrale. As for Paolini, she gambolled across the red dust, revelling in a buoyant atmosphere that she later described as “like a football stadium”.

Errani, alongside whom Paolini will contest the women’s doubles final against on Sunday, was the last Italian to reach the final at the Foro Italico, but that was in 2014. Here was a victory for today, for a nation riding an unprecedented tennis high and hopeful that Jannik Sinner, the men’s world No 1, can complete a clean sweep of singles honours for the Tricolore when he faces Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday.

“It’s amazing, it’s really a dream,” Paolini told Sky Sports Tennis. “I was coming to watch this tournament when I was a kid and now, holding the trophy, it’s unbelievable.

“I never thought I could hold this trophy one day, but today is a special day for me. I never played so well here, I never won two matches, but this year something changed.

“I think today was the best match I played here in Rome, I was controlling the ball really well. I stepped on court, I was tactically very focused, and the plan was clear. I did well, I didn’t do many mistakes, I was solid and it was a great match.

“In Italy, tennis is growing a lot and I’m really happy to be a part of it.”

If the outcome was a repeat of the Italian’s quarter-final victory over Gauff in Stuttgart last month, the manner of it was quite different. 

On that occasion, Paolini had drawn on her ample reserves of tenacity and resolve to claw back an early deficit. This time, she went toe-to-toe from the outset, stepping inside the baseline, firing her groundstrokes with a depth and penetration to which Gauff had no answer.

“Jasmine played great tennis,” said Gauff, whose difficulties were compounded by 55 unforced errors. “Unfortunately, I felt like I didn’t bring my best, which I knew I needed today.

“That’s not to discredit my opponent. She forced me to play that way. Maybe I could have served better and put more balls in the court. But she played to win today and she deserved to win.”

With the dust now settled on the ecstatic highs of last summer, when Paolini reached two grand slam finals in quick succession at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, only to come up short on both occasions, this was a cathartic moment for the italian. Then, success came unexpectedly; now, the late-blooming champion has proved, yet again, that she can mix it with the best.

A double fault from Gauff on the opening point set the tone for a tough afternoon for the American, who struggled on second serve, winning a meagre 11 of 27 points, and hit seven double faults. 

Paolini, meanwhile, set a breathless early pace, and while the initial exchanges were tightly contested, it was the Italian who emerged from a flurry of early breaks to establish a 3-1 lead. From there, the outcome was rarely in doubt.

Paolini, who rises one place to No 4 in the rankings, will now head to Roland Garros firmly embedded among the title favourites and confident in the knowledge that last year’s run to the final was no fluke. Could she go one better this time around? Only a fool would bet against it.

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In the emotional aftermath of a final that swung back and forth for almost two hours before Krejcikova finally prevailed 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, the 28-year-old Czech paid an eloquent and composed tribute to her compatriot, who coached and counselled her before her death from cancer in November 2017. Speaking in her on-court interview, Krejcikova recalled how a coaching partnership that began when she knocked on Novotna’s door as an 18-year-old, clutching a letter and asking for guidance, changed her life.  

“I think coming to Jana, knocking on her door, giving her the letter – everything that happened during that moment, I think it just changed my life,” said Krejcikova, the 31st seed, after winning her second grand slam singles title. “It definitely changed my tennis life, because during the period when I finished juniors, I didn’t know what I should do, if I should continue and play pro, or if I should go the way of education. 

“Jana was the one that told me I had the potential, and that I should definitely turn pro and just try to make it. Before she passed away, she told me to go and win a slam, and I achieved that in Paris in 2021. It was an unbelievable moment for me, and I never really dreamed that I would win the same trophy as Jana did in 1998.”

Shortly afterwards, when the cheers had subsided and the glare of flashing cameras dulled, the emotion of the moment hit home in earnest. It is more than a quarter of a century since Novotna banished the memory of two losing finals by claiming a cathartic victory over Nathalie Tauziat, but memories of her title run, five years after a heart-wrenching defeat to Steffi Graf in the 1993 final left her crying on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent, will forever be embedded in Wimbledon folklore. Having made her way off Centre Court, Krejcikova paused to gaze at the honours board, where her name had been freshly inscribed alongside Novotna’s on the roll of honour. She was overwhelmed with emotion. 

“The only thing that was going through my head was that I miss Jana a lot,” said Krejcikova. “It was just very emotional, a very emotional moment to see me on a board right next to her. I think she would be proud. I think she would be really excited that I’m on the same board as she is, because Wimbledon was super special for her.”

In an absorbing final, it required a performance of outstanding quality and resilience from Krejcikova to subdue an impassioned fightback from the seventh-seeded Paolini, who gave everything in pursuit of her dream of becoming the first Italian Wimbledon champion. For a set, she was played off the court. Krejcikova, picking up from where she left off in her semi-final win over Elena Rybakina, the former champion and title favourite, made a near-flawless start, putting a remarkable 90% of first serves into play in the opener and barely missing a return. But Paolini roused herself magnificently in the second set, returning from a bathroom break with renewed energy and aggression to turn the match on its head. 

After returning to the fray, Paolini ripped through her opening service game, her groundstrokes acquiring fresh depth and penetration as she moved up the court and sought to dictate. Showing a first hint of fallibility, Krejcikova made a trio of unforced errors in the next game to drop serve for the first time. When the Czech sliced tamely into the net to miss a break point in the next game, frustration surfaced, Krejcikova gesturing in exasperation after being disturbed by a noise from the crowd. Now Paolini was on her way, refocusing her attack on the Czech’s backhand even as Krejcikova became increasingly passive off the forehand. The shift in momentum was most starkly reflected in the players’ serving statistics. While Paolini’s second serve win percentage rose from 38% in the first set to 83% in the second, Krejcikova’s dipped from 50% to 33%, a measure of the Italian’s rising assertiveness.

Having fought back from a set down against Donna Vekic to win the longest women’s semi-final in Wimbledon history, Paolini had more history in her sights as she matched Krejcikova step for step over the first six games of the final set. No woman had rebounded from losing the first set in the final two rounds at the All England Club since Graf came from behind against Novotna and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario to win the 1995 title. 

But facing the first break point of the decider at 3-3, Paolini unsuccessfully challenged a call on her first serve, the disruption to her rhythm and focus costing her dearly. Delivering her only double fault of the entire afternoon, Paolini gifted Krejcikova what proved a decisive breakthrough. Three games later, the Czech navigated a nervy service game to convert her third match point with a 108mph delivery that went unreturned. 

It has nonetheless been an extraordinary six months for Paolini, who had never won a match on grass before this year and started her season ranked outside the world’s top 30. Having since reached the last 16 of the Australian Open, won the biggest title of her career in Dubai, and made a left-field run to the French Open final, Paolini will now rise to a career high of fifth on Monday. That will perhaps come as scant consolation after losing the biggest match of her life, but the late-blooming 28-year-old, who was demolished by Iga Swiatek at Roland Garros, knows she is getting closer

“I started bad, but I said, ‘OK, take some time and try to relax and to come back in the second set stronger, to try to push the ball more,’” said Paolini. “I was a little bit, you know, controlling too much, and I missed a lot of shots. But she was playing, honestly, very good. The first set she was serving really, really good, a high percentage of first serves, so it was tough. I think I did better than the last final, but still not enough.” 

Krejcikova, meanwhile, did more than she ever imagined possible. On an afternoon when she joined a long and illustrious line of Czech Wimbledon champions dating back to Jaroslav Drobny in 1954, all the way through to Marketa Vondrousova last year, two of the most famous, Martina Navratilova and Jan Kodes, looked on approvingly from the Royal Box. Somewhere, perhaps, so too did Novotna, the most important of them all.

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A run to the last 16 of January’s Australian Open held promise of better to come, and when the 28-year-old claimed a historic triumph in Dubai the following month, becoming only the third Italian woman to win a WTA 1000 title, the feeling was that she had delivered. In fact, she was barely getting started.

Six weeks ago, Paolini embarked on an extraordinary run to the final of the French Open, and on Thursday she reached the final of a second straight major, prevailing in a physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting battle with Donna Vekic to win the longest women’s semi-final in Wimbledon history. 

By the time Vekic drilled a final forehand wide to confirm Paolini’s 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) victory, two hours and 51 minutes had elapsed, eclipsing Serena Williams’s epic 2009 win over Elena Dementieva by three minutes. In a measure of the magnitude of her summer, Paolini also became the first woman to reach the finals of Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same season since Williams in 2016. In half a season, she has gone from a grand slam also-ran to being mentioned in the same breath as arguably the greatest female player in history; like her latest success, it has been the wildest of rides.

“It was really tough today, she played unbelievable,” said the seventh-seeded Paolini on court afterwards. “She was hitting winners everywhere. I was a little bit struggling at the beginning, but I was just repeating to myself to fight [for] every ball and to improve a little bit. 

“I am so happy with this win. This match, I will remember forever.”

It was, indeed, unforgettable, an occasion of unrelenting drama and emotion and no little quality. Yet Vekic, who cut a distraught figure down the stretch, will not be able to banish it from her memory soon enough. 

If major trophies were handed out on the strength of perseverance alone, the unseeded Croatian would have been a multiple grand slam champion by now. As it is, she has taken the long road, one punctuated by injuries, knee surgery and thoughts of retirement. This was her first major semi-final – she has previously reached the last eight at the Australian and US Open, achieving a career-high ranking of No 19 – and while she is projected to rise from her current position of 37 to the cusp of the top 20 next week, that will be scant consolation. 

Vekic dominated the first set, barely losing a point behind her first serve while feasting on the 5ft 4in Paolini’s delivery. Returning from inside the baseline and going hell-for-leather with her booming forehand, Vekic looked nigh-on unplayable. 

But history has shown otherwise, and as Paolini improved her serving statistics and started to show greater variety, throwing in drop shots, approaching the net and switching to a deeper return position, so she began to make inroads. It made for a far more competitive second set, the pair matching each other step for step until the 10th game, where the cumulative pressure told on the Croatian. Serving to stay in the set, Vekic left the door ajar with a double fault, and Paolini gratefully forced it open.

On we went to a deciding set, one Vekic looked likely to control when she consolidated an early break to lead 3-1. But Paolini was far from done. She hit back to level, promptly dropped serve again as Vekic jumped on an inviting 66mph second serve, and then took full advantage as the Croatian, feeling the toll of going the distance for the fifth time in six matches, began to stretch out her legs and ice her forearm. 

From there, it became a battle of Vekic’s brave shot-making and Paolini’s tenacity and resilience. The Italian kept pressing, moving her opponent deep into the corners, forever making one more ball. As Vekic prepared to serve to stay in the match, she was visibly distressed. She nonetheless steeled herself to hold with some brilliant serving, saving a match point in the process, and at 5-5 she twice held a break point that would have left her serving for the match. 

Again, Paolini held on. As Vekic trudged disconsolately back to her chair, she dissolved into tears. Up in the players’ box, Pam Shriver, her coach, yelled encouragement. Brankica Vekic, her mother, wore a haunted expression. Somehow, though, Vekic rallied to hold again, winning a tense 17-shot rally to fend off a second match point. A fraught 10-point tiebreak followed, but it was not be for Vekic.

“Tough, tough match,” she later reflected, struggling to maintain her composure as she faced the media. “I believed that I could win until the end. She played some amazing tennis and all congrats to her, she definitely deserved it.

“I thought I was going to die in the third set, I had so much pain in my arm, my leg. So it was not easy out there, but I will recover.

“I was more crying because I had so much pain that I didn’t know how I could keep playing.”

Paolini, meanwhile, stands on the brink of history for the second time in little more than a month. In Saturday’s final, she will face Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, who later fought back from a set down to stun Elena Rybakina, the former champion and title favourite, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. 

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Ten days after the French Open crown was almost ripped from her grasp by Naomi Osaka, Iga Swiatek demolished Jasmine Paolini of Italy in straight sets to claim her third straight title in Paris, and her fourth in five years. 

This time she even kept the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen in one piece, carefully ensuring the lid did not fly off the famous old trophy when she celebrated on the podium, as it did last year. Swiatek does not like to let anything slip at Roland Garros.

Paolini, 5ft 4in tall but flying at altitude in a season that has brought a first WTA 1000 title in Dubai and an impending career-high ranking of No 7, made a dream start to her first grand slam final. Matching Swiatek’s aggression off the ground and throwing in variations of pace, height and positioning, the 12th-seeded Italian showed her trademark tenacity to fight off a break point in her opening service game, then claimed the first break of the match as the defending champion lapsed into error. 

That was to be as good as it got for Paolini, however, Swiatek responding with a love break to spark a run of 10 consecutive games as she closed out a 6-2, 6-1 victory to claim her fifth grand slam title.   

With her 21st straight win on the Parisian clay, the Polish world No 1 becomes only the third woman in the open era to win three successive titles on Court Philippe Chatrier, following in the footsteps of Justine Henin and Monica Seles. This was her 19th win in a row on the red stuff, a run that has also brought titles in Madrid and Rome, and while she has rebuffed comparisons with her idol Rafael Nadal, who has won 14 times at Roland Garros, the fact remains that she is on a near-identical trajectory. Nadal was 24 when he won his fifth French Open; form and fitness permitting, Swiatek, who has just turned 23, will have a chance to equal that landmark – and move another step closer to Chris Evert’s all-time women’s record of seven titles – in 12 months’ time. 

Such thoughts might seem premature, but Swiatek’s clay-court dominance is of an order that almost demands conjecture. Already she is rubbing shoulders with the all-time greats. Only Evert, who together with Martina Navratilova presented the trophy, can match Swiatek’s return of four titles from her first six visits to Roland Garros. The Pole is also the first player to win Madrid, Rome and Paris in the same season since Serena Williams in 2013, a point of comparison that even her coach, the unexcitable Tomasz Wiktorowski, tacitly acknowledged afterwards.

“Incredible journey for us,” said Wiktorowski. “Three tournaments in seven weeks, plus Stuttgart. I was like, ‘Crazy plan,’ but we knew somebody did it before us, so we knew that’s possible.”

Swiatek’s sense of what is possible, already strong after her recovery from three championship points down against Aryna Sabalenka in the Madrid final, grew more pronounced still after she climbed off the canvas against Osaka, who came within a missed backhand of ending her French Open title defence in the second round.

“This tournament has been pretty surreal, with its beginning, with the second round,” said Swiatek. “I was able to get my game better and better every match, so I’m really proud of myself, because the expectations obviously have been pretty high from the outside, and pressure as well. So I’m happy that I just went for it and I was ready to deal with all of this and I could win.”

Given that Swiatek dropped just 20 games in six matches either side of her victory over Osaka – only three more than Osaka won against her – the obvious assumption would be that her second-round win was the catalyst for her title run. Wiktorowski, however, was not so sure.  

“I’m not sure if it helped, but it gave some perspective,” Wiktorowski told Eurosport’s Àlex Corretja. “It gave some perspective that it’s not going to be easy. She passed through this match, defended a match point, and she made it. It gives some confidence, but also it gives perspective to us that we probably need to do something a little bit more.”

Swiatek and her team delivered handsomely on that need. Like Coco Gauff in the previous round, Paolini was unable to summon the required blend of power and consistency to keep the Pole at bay, falling into error as she attempted to fight fire with fire in the face of Swiatek’s clinical and relentless attacking. As dominant behind her own serve as she was ruthless in dealing with her opponent’s delivery, Swiatek broke down the Italian time and again in the baseline exchanges, drawing her away from the middle of the court before delivering the coup de grâce.

“She was playing an unbelievable level all the match, no mistakes, hitting winners,” said Paolini. “I tried to play my best, but it’s not easy to play at that intensity. I never played a player that has this intensity before in my life.

“I think it was the most challenging match I played in my entire career.”

As Swiatek sank to her knees at the end, fists clenched and roaring with delight, it was hard to escape the feeling that facing her on clay might just be the most challenging match anyone could face in an entire career. Didn’t they used to say the same thing about a certain player from Spain?  

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Iga Swiatek may have a way to go before matching the Spaniard’s dominance on the Parisian clay but, after defeating Coco Gauff in straight sets in Thursday’s semi-finals, she will have the opportunity to compete for a fourth French Open title in five years when she faces Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in two days’ time. Given that she has just turned 23 – like Nadal, she celebrates her birthday during the fortnight – another win would see Swiatek equal her childhood idol’s record at the same age. 

“I would never expect anybody to compare me to Rafa, because for me he’s above everybody and he’s a total legend,” said the Polish world No 1. “I’m proud of myself that I’m playing consistently here and that I’m even mentioned in the same sentence as Rafa.”

If she continues in her present vein, Swiatek is likely to find herself in many such sentences in years to come. The defending champion’s 6-2, 6-4 success against Gauff was her 20th in a row at Roland Garros, where she is bidding to become the first woman since Justine Henin to win three straight titles. Having won the WTA 1000 events in Madrid and Rome on the road to Paris, she is also riding an 18-match winning streak on clay. Not quite Nadal’s 81 consecutive victories on the surface, let alone Chris Evert’s 125, but she is certainly on the right track.

“This surface makes my game better,” said Swiatek. “My grip allows me to spin more. I can play more defence points because it’s a bit slower, but on the other hand I also get also more time to attack.”

She did plenty of both against Gauff, who set out to play on the front foot but was in trouble from the moment she sent a drive volley sailing over the baseline to drop her opening service game. Having lost all but one of her previous 11 meetings with Swiatek – including two on Court Philippe Chatrier, in the 2022 final and last year’s quarter-finals – the 20-year-old’s predicament was clear. To buck the trend, she had to try something different.

Naomi Osaka established a template for success with her near-miss against Swiatek in the second round but, for all the virtues of Gauff’s game, she does not possess Osaka’s ability to combine raw power with consistency off the ground. As her victory over Aryna Sabalenka in last year’s US Open final demonstrated, the Atlantan is at her best when absorbing pace and counter-punching. So while her enterprise was admirable, Gauff’s final tally of 39 unforced errors to 27 winners was symptomatic of a flawed game plan, particularly on a clay court, and especially against Swiatek. 

It was no coincidence that Gauff’s best phase of the match came when she began to play with greater patience. That came in the early stages of the second set, where she established a 3-1 lead despite a moment of controversy that left her in tears. 

When a Swiatek serve was incorrectly called long, the chair umpire, Aurélie Tourte, swiftly intervened to correct the mistake, but ruled that the line judge’s intervention had not affected Gauff’s missed return and should not be replayed. The American pleaded her case, arguing that the call had come in unison with her attempt to play the ball, but her objections fell on deaf ears. TV evidence suggested she had a point, and afterwards Gauff’s bemoaned the sport’s failure to employ technology in such circumstances.

“It’s almost ridiculous that we don’t have it,” said Gauff, who will rise to a career-high ranking of No 2 next week. “Every sport has it. There are so many decisions that are made, and it sucks as a player to go online and you see that you were completely right. 

“In situations, you can call for the supervisor, but there’s not much they can do from that standpoint. So I definitely think as a sport we have to evolve. We have the technology, they’re showing it on TV, so I don’t get why the player can’t see it.”

In the second semi-final, Paolini’s experience told against Mirra Andreeva, the 17-year-old Russian who defeated an off-colour Aryna Sabalenka on Wednesday. Paolini seized the initiative with an early break, and although Andreeva fashioned five opportunities to get the opening set back on serve, the 12th-seeded Italian averted the danger with trademark tenacity. The 28-year-old then reeled off six games in a row to complete a 6-3, 6-1 victory and become the first Italian woman to reach a final at Roland Garros since Sara Errani in 2012. Not bad for a player who had never advanced beyond the second round of a major before this year.

“It’s a great feeling to be in a grand slam final,” said Paolini. “It seems something impossible, you know, but it’s true, so I’m really happy to be in this position.”

Paolini’s breakout year began with a run to the last 16 of the Australian Open and a first WTA 1000 title in Dubai. Having started the season ranked 29th, she will be a top-10 player when the new ranking list is published next week. In two days’ time, however, she will face one of the toughest challenges in tennis: Swiatek, on Chatrier, in the French Open final. 

The locals have a verb, “Nadaliser”, that they have traditionally used to describe Nadal’s domination on the red clay where he has won 14 of his 22 grand slam titles. It will be of little comfort to Paolini that they are now repurposing that word to characterise Swiatek’s supremacy at Roland Garros. On Saturday, we shall see if the Italian can avoid being Nadalised.

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On an afternoon of major upsets at the French Open, Andreeva, 17, fought back from a set down to claim the biggest win of her career against Aryna Sabalenka, becoming the youngest women’s grand slam semi-finalist since Martina Hingis in 1997. Sabalenka, the second seed and reigning Australian Open champion, struggled physically from the outset and on several occasions looked close to throwing in the towel.

It was a desperate stroke of misfortune for the 26-year-old Belarusian, particularly after Elena Rybakina, the fourth seed, was earlier beaten by Paolini in straight sets. With Iga Swiatek, the world No 1 and defending champion, already through to face Coco Gauff in the top half of the draw, the expectation was that the top four seeds would reach the semi-finals in Paris for the first time since 1992. But a bold and brilliant performance from Paolini put a dent in the notion of a women’s big four which Andreeva, to her immense credit, hammered home.

“I tried to stay in the game, stay focused, not to wait for her mistakes, to try to finish everything by myself,” said Andreeva following her 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-4 win.

“If we look back, I wouldn’t expect myself playing [in the] semi-finals, because that was just kind of a dream for me in the beginning of the tournament.”

Andreeva’s dream was Sabalenka’s nightmare. A pair of early breaks could not disguise the Belarusian’s discomfort on serve and sluggish movement and, as she fell behind against an opponent she had dismissed comfortably in each of their previous two meetings, she gestured agitatedly to her support team. After seven games, a doctor arrived on the scene, pills were administered, and Sabalenka somehow summoned the strength to recover from 3-5 down and see out the set.  

But Andreeva held firm, maintaining her concentration despite the weight of the occasion and the distracting nature of Sabalenka’s predicament, and having levelled the contest she showed admirable composure to recover from a break down in the decider. Serving to stay in the tournament, Sabalenka fought off a first match point with a courageous forehand winner, but Andreeva would not be denied. The teenager ripped a backhand winner down the line to bring up a second opportunity, and this time she converted it with an inspired defensive lob. 

In Paolini, she will face another opponent enjoying her finest run at a major. The Italian, who started the year ranked 29th, had never been beyond the second round at this level before reaching the last 16 of the Australian Open in January. Two months later, she was scheduled to face Rybakina in the Dubai quarter-finals only for the former Wimbledon champion to withdraw with illness. Paolini went on to win the WTA 1000 event, defeating Anna Kalinskaya in the final, and her growing belief that she can compete at the highest level will be reinforced when she breaks into the top 10 for the first time next week. 

A near-flawless first set gave Paolini the platform for a 6-2, 4-6. 6-4 victory over Rybakina, the Italian dropping just one point on serve while threatening the world No 4’s delivery throughout. It has been a difficult few weeks for Rybakina, who was forced to abandon her title defence in Rome because of sickness, and has since struggled with sleeping problems and media controversy. She has been winning in Paris even without playing her best tennis, and put herself in a position to do so again after shrugging off an error-strewn start to force a decider, but a poor service game at 4-4 handed Paolini the initiative, and the Italian served out for a famous win.

“I think I started to play better, with more consistency, last year,” said Paolini. “Match by match, I felt more convinced that I can play at a higher level. But it was a process, it’s not like I switched something [on], it was a process. 

“Now, I step on court and I say to myself that I have a chance to win the match. Before, sometimes when I was playing against the top players, I was like ‘OK, I need a miracle to win this match,’ so I was already losing the match before even playing.”

Now the shoe will be on the other foot: seeded 12th and by far the more experienced player, Paolini will go into Thursday’s semi-final as the favourite. Then again, as she and Andreeva proved, that doesn’t always count for much.

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With a 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 victory over Kalinskaya, the Russian qualifier whose electrifying run to the final included wins over Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff, Paolini claimed the biggest title of her career. Her only previous tour-level crown came at the Slovenia Open in 2021, a relatively modest WTA 250 event; now she joins Camila Giorgi and Flavia Pennetta as one of only three Italian women to have won a WTA 1000 title. 

Paolini’s success also elevates her to a career-high ranking of No 14, a rise of 10 places on her best previous mark, which she achieved after reaching the fourth round of last month’s Australian Open – where she was defeated by Kalinskaya. 

“It’s unbelievable, I don’t know what to say,” said Paolini. “I lost to her in the Australian Open. I knew she was tough. She was playing really, really well. Honestly, I don’t know how I managed to win the match because she was playing too good at the beginning. 

“I tried to play maybe more on the backhand, tried to push more, to be also more relaxed, to take the ball earlier because if not, she was moving me so much. I was running a lot. But the key I think was to believe that even if I was down, I could turn the match.”

It was a challenge tailor-made for a player who had already recovered from a set and a break down to defeat Haddad Mai, the 11th seed, in the opening round, and saved six set points to foil a second-set comeback from Sorana Cirstea in the semi-finals.

Kalinskaya started in the same dominant form that propelled her to the final, moving inside the baseline, dictating the rallies with her smooth, powerful groundstrokes and feasting on Paolini’s second serve. When the 25-year-old, already a set to the good, rifled a backhand return winner to break at the start of the second set, an advantage she consolidated with ease in the next game, it was hard to see a way back for Paolini. It was at that point that the Italian dug in.

“I think maybe the key game was when I was down 2-0 in the second set,” said Paolini. “I was serving. I said, ‘C’mon, you have to try to play every point, you have to try to do something. Just think about simple things. Try to serve more maybe on the backhand, some more speed on the serve, try to move the ball.’  

“I was just thinking about easy stuff to do on court. It worked pretty well. Then I started badly again in the third set. I have to say, at the end of the match maybe she missed some balls that she never missed all the match. It’s tough. Tennis is tough mentally.”

After coming out on top of a run of three straight breaks of serve at the start of the decider, Kalinskaya appeared to have the match on her racket. But having maintained her advantage all the way to 5-4, the magnitude of the moment finally seemed to catch up with the world No 40, her trademark composure deserting her as she committed four unforced errors in a row. Kalinskaya will nonetheless take plenty away from what has been an unforgettable week.

“The season just started and it’s a great start for me,” said Kalinskaya. “Now I know what I’m capable of, I hope I will keep showing my game”

As for Paolini, gifted a reprieve, she seized her chance gleefully. She too has had a remarkable journey.

“I think every person has her own steps, story,” said Paolini. “I need some more time to believe maybe that I could play at this level, how I did this week. It’s not going to be like this I know every week. It’s tough. It’s the best players in the world. 

“But I’m here enjoying my tennis, enjoying the matches on court. I’m just loving what I do, just trying to live the present, to stay there, to make the best I could do in that moment. I’m really, really happy.”

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“Hi,” she said, greeting a waiting mascot with a warm smile and a friendly wave. “How are you? Excited?”

Taking Kalinskaya’s outstretched hand, the beaming little girl replied that she was indeed excited: her mum and dad were going to see her on television. It was a charming exchange and, behind them, a boy assigned the task of walking on with Iga Swiatek looked on enviously.

It was not that the Polish world No 1 was unfriendly: she said hello, shook the child’s hand. But Swiatek was in match mode – headphones on, attending to her hydration, preparing her walk-on music. On familiar ground – Swiatek was playing her 13th WTA 1000 semi-final, Kalinskaya her first – the top seed was simply taking care of business.

Those moments were nonetheless indicative of the emotional temperature of an evening that would culminate with Kalinskaya, a 25-year-old qualifier ranked 40th in the world, handing Swiatek her first straight-sets defeat in almost a year. Kalinskaya was still smiling and chatting to her young charge as the pair made their way on to court, and nothing that happened in the extraordinary one hour and 41 minutes that followed seemed to alter the unflappable Russian’s mood. In contrast, Swiatek, focused and business-like from the outset, would become increasingly fraught and agitated. 

After the disappointment of an early exit to Linda Noskova at the Australian Open, Swiatek has bounced back strongly over the Middle East swing. But for once, the Pole struggled to bear the weight of expectation lightly; struggled to keep her foot on the accelerator after establishing an early lead; struggled to maintain the steely composure that had carried her to seven straight victories. It resulted in a 6-4, 6-4 defeat, just the second Swiatek has suffered in 27 matches dating back to last October.

Gunning for a second straight WTA 1000 title that, following last week’s triumph at the Qatar Open, would have made her the first player to win the Gulf double since Justine Henin in 2007, Swiatek began the match in dominant form. Dictating from the baseline and forcing the play at the net as she repeatedly drew Kalinskaya wide on the backhand, forcing the qualifier to take one hand off the racket and thereby nullifying one of her chief weapons, the Pole established a 4-2 lead. But the 22-year-old found it increasingly difficult to maintain a balance between power and consistency. As her errors slowly mounted, so too did her irritation.

“I felt like I didn’t have power any more to give even more, which doesn’t happen often,” said Swiatek, who complained of a lack of “energy and intensity”. 

“I just felt out of control a little bit because of that, because usually when I tell myself what to do I can improve my game, but today I was so out of power and tired that I just couldn’t.”

Early in the second set, that lack of control manifested itself in uncharacteristic fashion. Broken in the opening game, Swiatek’s deepening frustration was evident as Kalinskaya served to consolidate her advantage. She looked imploringly to her team after prodding a backhand long, then gestured to them in exasperation after slamming a mighty forehand winner. Nothing seemed to please her – least of all the missed return that followed, an error to which she responded by slamming her racket into the ground in frustration, breaking the frame and receiving a code violation for her troubles.

Through it all, her opponent remained serene. As Swiatek bounded out of her chair at the next changeover, Kalinskaya took her time, quietly composing herself before returning to the fray with a relaxed smile. She seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself – and why not? Having defeated a pair of top-10 players in Jelena Ostapenko and Coco Gauff in the previous two rounds, she had little to lose. Swiatek, meanwhile, had spent much of the previous 24 hours insisting that the outcome of a tournament at which she was the only seeded player remaining was not preordained. 

“In the beginning of the second set I didn’t think too much,” said Kalinskaya. “I just had to play point by point. She’s a great player, so I had to stay calm and just follow the plan that I had in my mind. I had to stay aggressive and keep moving her.”

She succeeded admirably in those aims, coolly absorbing the disappointment of being denied two match points at 5-2 amid a late surge of aggression from Swiatek, then fending off two break points as she again served for victory two games later. On her first match point, Kalinskaya moved forward behind a thumping crosscourt forehand before slamming away a drive volley. Already projected to achieve a new career-high ranking of 24th on Monday, Kalinskaya will break into the top 20 if she can repeat her Australian Open victory over Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in Saturday’s final. 

In the first semi-final, Paolini resisted another extraordinary comeback by Sorana Cirstea to reach her fifth career final 6-2, 7-6 (8-6). Cirstea fought back from a set and 5-1 down to defeat Marketa Vondrousova in the quarter-finals, and threatened to repeat that feat as she set about cancelling out a 5-2 second-set deficit. But Paolini clung on gamely, warding off six set points to join Kalinskaya in reaching a first WTA 1000 final.

“I played already with her two times, she’s playing really well when she’s little bit down in the score,” said Paolini. “She’s trying to hit more winners, to play faster.”

At least she will be well prepared for the final. Nobody at this tournament has played faster than Kalinskaya, whose fearless ball-striking and ability to inject sudden changes of pace has so proved irresistible. Paolini, denied a first grand slam quarter-final by Kalinskaya at the Australian Open, is all too aware of the challenge that awaits.

“If you want to beat her, you have to play deep and try to do not too many mistakes, but also try to hit winners, to hit the ball, to push her away from the court because if not, she’s going to move you,” said the Italian.

Swiatek can attest to the truth of that. It promises to be a fascinating final.

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“Not really,” replied the 24-year-old. “It’s too early to say if it’s a big three, big four. I think some years should pass and we all need to continue playing well.”

Years? A cynic might counter that it has taken less than a week to disprove the notion. 

The Dubai Tennis Championships were billed as the first collision of the world’s top four since the Australian Open; instead, as the business end of the tournament heaves into view, Swiatek is the only seeded player left standing. The Polish top seed defeated Qinwen Zheng 6-3, 6-2 to reach the semi-finals, where she will be the lone standard bearer for the world’s top 20 and a red-hot favourite to add a second straight WTA 1000 title to last week’s triumph in Doha. Not that the 22-year-old is not getting carried away. 

“I’m not thinking about winning the title, because I try to do everything step by step,” said Swiatek in her on-court interview. “All these players that are playing this tournament are really great, any of us can win. I try just to stay humble and focused on only the next step, and if by any chance I’m going to win the tournament, it’s going to be just an effect. No point in overanalysing that.” 

Be that as it may, not even Swiatek could deny her prospects looked brighter by the end of a day that, after starting with three of the four reigning grand slam champions in contention, ended in utter carnage.

The exodus was led by Marketa Vondrousova, the Czech seventh seed, who saw six match points come and go as she fell victim to an extraordinary fightback from Sorana Cirstea of Romania. It has been a difficult start to the season for Vondrousova, who struggled with sickness in Australia and arrived in Dubai short of match practice. But for an hour or so, the 24-year-old looked every inch the player who stormed to the Wimbledon title last summer. Mixing heavy groundstrokes with short angles, drop shots and lobs, Vondrousova opened up a 6-2, 5-1 lead. 

The emphatic nature of that scoreline was misleading, however. Cirstea had competed fiercely throughout, her power and athletic defensive play keeping the points close even as her unforced errors stacked up. But with defeat seemingly inevitable, the 33-year-old resolved to go down swinging; if she couldn’t win, the least she could do was entertain the fans who continued to chant her name in loud, chopped syllables. Cirstea saved two match points with aces, another with a winning volley, and forced the play on three others to lay the foundations for what she described as “the biggest comeback of my career”.

“I looked over at the clock and I saw it was only one hour of play,” said Cirstea after completing an improbable 2-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-2 victory. “I was having such great support. I said, ‘OK, let’s try to win one more game for the public, make it a little bit longer.’ 

“I think that thing took the pressure away from me. I started to find my game.”

By the time Cirstea was done, another Wimbledon champion had exited the tournament without striking a ball after Rybakina withdrew with a gastrointestinal problem. 

“Unfortunately, I was not feeling well overnight,” announced the fourth-seeded Kazakhstani. “Since I am not feeling 100% ready to compete, I have decided to pull out from my quarter-final match.”

Rybakina’s withdrawal means the event is guaranteed at least one unseeded finalist, with Jasmine Paolini of Italy advancing to face Cirstea in what will be the 28-year-old’s first semi-final appearance at this level. Paolini, ranked four places below the Romanian at No 26, has won both their previous meetings.

Vondrousova was later followed out of the tournament by Coco Gauff, the third seed and US Open champion, who was undone by a free-hitting display from Anna Kalinskaya, a Russian qualifier ranked 40th in the world. Kalinskaya, who defeated Jelena Ostapenko in the previous round, prevailed 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 to claim her second victory over a grand slam champion in as many days. The Russian, a straight-sets winner over defied an upper back injury to .

In her first appearance on the tournament’s main court, it took time for Kalinskaya to find her range. A brilliant ball-striker who favours high-risk, high-reward tennis, the 25-year-old was unable to find the right balance in the opening set, committing 11 unforced errors and winning barely a quarter of her second-serve points. She was not helped by an upper back injury that required a medical timeout and briefly seemed serious enough to raise doubts about whether she would continue.

Once she settled, though, Kalinskaya was irresistible, her self-belief evident as she controlled the tempo of the baseline exchanges, drilling her backhand with regal authority in the face of Gauff’s dogged retrieving.

“I started a little bit not so confident,” said Kalinskaya, a surprise quarter-finalist at last month’s Australian Open. “I was getting used to the surface. I didn’t get the chance to play on centre court, I felt the speed of the bounce was a bit different. I couldn’t find my timing.  

“In the second set, I calmed down a little bit more and I played point by point till the end of the match. I could feel the tension till the last point. She kept bringing so many balls back, so I had to stay really patient and decide which ball to go and finish the point.”

Having struggled against Karolina Pliskova in the previous round, where she became embroiled in a protracted dispute with French chair umpire Pierre Bacchi, Gauff’s second defeat in four matches concluded a forgettable Middle East swing for the American world No 3. 

With Sabalenka beaten by Donna Vekic in her opening match on Tuesday, the big four becomes a big one. Swiatek now has seven consecutive straight-set wins under her belt and, unlike her peers, appears to have been largely untroubled by the transition from Doha to Dubai. Her caution is understandable, particularly given the power at Kalinskaya’s disposal, but it is hard not to like the Pole’s chances.

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