Unseeded. Unsponsored. Undefeated.
Marketa Vondrousova is the women’s champion of Wimbledon and her life is about to change.
The 24-year-old’s talent has never been in question, but not in her wildest dreams could she have imagined ending her 2023 challenge like this, with a 6-4, 6-4 win over one of the pre-tournament favourites, Ons Jabeur.
She was — in her words — “crushed” by Ashleigh Barty in the 2019 French Open final as a teenager, and was the silver medallist to Belinda Bencic at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago. So she has been in big finals before.
But on grass? Across her four previous visits to Wimbledon, she had won one match. Her career record on the surface, even with these seven wins in the past two weeks is: played 22, won 11, lost 11.
She doesn’t have a kit sponsor after being dropped at the end of her four-year contract with Nike last year, and she is the first unseeded woman to win this title. The last woman to reach a Wimbledon final unseeded was Billie Jean King, who was still in college (and still known as Billie Jean Moffitt) when she lost to Margaret Court in 1963. When she and Vondrousova crossed paths after the final on Saturday, the American legend said: “You’re the first unseeded winner ever. I love it!”
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