By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
“The Wimbledon women’s championship is becoming the hardest thing to predict in sports”
This is what Chris Fowler said on the ESPN broadcast of the Wimbledon women’s singles final as No. 25-ranked and No. 31 seeded Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, a 100-1 shot to win the title two weeks ago, won the title defeating No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 in the final.
The win for Krejcikova comes one year after her fellow Czech Marketa Vondrousova won Wimbledon as the longest shot with a ranking of No. 42. The year before that, in 2022, Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan won the title, also as a 100-1 shot before the start of the tournament, with a ranking of No. 22.
The original lowest-ranked player to win the Wimbledon women’s singles title was Venus Williams, who won the title in 2007 with a ranking of No. 31.
While Krejcikova is one of these long-shot winners, she certainly had a borderline Hall of Fame resume prior to her victory. She was already a major singles champion having won the 2021 French Open singles title as well as seven major women’s doubles titles alongside Katerina Siniakova and three mixed doubles major titles. To boot, Krejcikova won Olympic gold in women’s doubles at the 2020 Tokyo Games with Siniakova.
‘She’s a sure fire Hall of Famer,” said Chris McKendry on ESPN of Krejcikova.
