SI:AM | Jasmine Paolini’s Cinderella Run at Wimbledon

She just did something no one since Serena Williams has.

This will be just the seventh time the 28-year-old has played in the final of a WTA event since turning pro in 2017. / Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’m a little surprised how quickly the MLB All-Star break snuck up on me. 

In today’s SI:AM: 

🚗 More trouble for Georgia
🎙️ Fox’s NFL booths
🦅 Eagles preview

She’s been on a tear this year

The women’s draw at Wimbledon this year has been utter chaos. Top seed Iga Świątek, the reigning French Open champion, crashed out in the third round against unseeded Yulia Putintseva. Second seed Coco Gauff was upset in the fourth round. Sixth seed Markéta Vondroušová lost in the first round. Fifth seed Jessica Pegula bowed out in the second round. You get the picture. 

All that carnage has cleared a path for some fresh faces to seize the spotlight, and in Saturday’s final, we’re guaranteed to get a first-time Wimbledon champ. 

The final will feature Barbora Krejčíková against Jasmine Paolini. Krejčíková, currently ranked No. 32 in the world, may be familiar to tennis fans as the winner of the 2021 French Open, where she scored upsets over Elina Svitolina and Gauff en route to her first and only Grand Slam victory. Paolini, though, is more of an unknown. She is currently ranked No. 7 in the world but had never won a match at Wimbledon before this year. 

This will be just the seventh time that Paolini, 28, has played in the final of a WTA event since turning pro in 2017. Her only two previous wins on tour came at the ’21 Slovenia Open and this year’s Dubai Championships. But ’24 has been a big year for Paolini. In addition to her win in Dubai, she also reached the fourth round at the Australian Open—the first time in her career that she advanced past the second round at a Grand Slam event. Her big breakthrough came when she reached the final at this year’s French Open, losing to Świątek, 2–6, 1–6. 

Still, even with her strong showing at Roland Garros, Paolini came into Wimbledon with a career record of 13–18 in Grand Slams. That’s a 42% winning percentage. She’d also never won a main draw match at the All England Club, failing to advance out of qualifying in 2017, ’18 and ’19 and then losing in the first round in ’21, ’22 and ’23. 

Paolini’s career year is occurring at an age when many other players are already starting to decline. She’s 28, the same age as her opponent in Saturday's final, Krejčíková. But Krejčíková reached her peak in the world rankings two years ago at No. 2, after reaching the quarterfinals at the 2022 Australian Open, and has fallen steadily down the ladder since. Paolini is only now hitting her stride. 

The shape of Paolini’s career isn’t typical, but she also isn’t your typical elite tennis player. At 5'3", she’s significantly shorter than the vast majority of her opponents. (She’s seven inches shorter than Krejčíková.) That means she doesn’t have a big serve (just 46 aces in 37 matches this year, compared to 56 aces in 17 matches for Krejčíková) but she’s accurate with her serve (69.2% first serve percentage, third best among players who have played at least 30 matches this year) and moves well. She showed exceptional poise and relentlessness in a grueling semifinal match against Donna Vekić on Thursday, finally prevailing in a third-set tiebreaker after wearing Vekić down in a match that lasted nearly three hours.

“I thought I was going to die,” Vekić said. “I had so much pain in my arm, in my leg.” 

Paolini became the first Italian woman to reach a Wimbledon final and the first woman since Serena Williams in 2016 to reach the final at the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year. Her job isn’t done, but she’s also taking time to reflect on what she’s accomplished already during her incredible hot streak. 

“This last month has been crazy for me,” Paolini said. “I’m trying just to focus on what I have to do on the court, enjoy what I’m doing because I love playing tennis. It’s amazing to be here playing in this stadium. It’s a dream. I was watching Wimbledon finals when I was kid, so I’m enjoying it and just living in the present.”

Georgia football's off-the-field issues continue as two more players were arrested this week for separate driving-related incidents. / Joshua L. Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK

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The top five…

… things I saw yesterday: 

5. Ludvig Åberg’s supremely unlucky break at the Scottish Open. 
4. José Caballero’s impressive catch for the final out of the Rays’ win over the Yankees. 
3. Jeter Downs’s Derek Jeter impression in the field for the Yankees’ Triple A affiliate. 
2. Paul Skenes’s backdoor slider for his 11th strikeout of the game. 
1. Johan Rojas’s running catch in center.