Kostyuk one win from history after reaching first Wimbledon semifinal

Up until early June, Marta Kostyuk had never reached a Grand Slam semifinal. Six weeks later, the No. 12 seed has done it twice and now stands on the brink of creating history for Ukrainian tennis.

On Wednesday, Kostyuk advanced to her first Wimbledon semifinal and her second consecutive Grand Slam semifinal after defeating Italy's Jasmine Paolini in straight sets on Centre Court. The result matched the best Wimbledon performance by a Ukrainian player, equaling Elina Svitolina, who has reached the semifinals twice.

Using her powerful groundstrokes and exceptional athleticism to devastating effect, Kostyuk earned the first break of the match in the fifth game of the opening set and never looked back. She broke again in the ninth game to wrap up the set 6-3.

The second set followed a similar pattern, as breaks in the fourth and eighth games carried Kostyuk to a 6-3, 6-2 victory in just 69 minutes in her Centre Court debut.

Kostyuk was dominant on serve, not facing a single break point throughout the 72-minute contest. She was pushed to deuce just once across her eight service games while converting four of her eight break-point opportunities on Paolini's serve.

Paolini, runner-up here in 2024, struggled to find her rhythm, finishing with 26 unforced errors and eight winners, while Kostyuk produced a far more balanced performance, striking 19 winners while committing 19 unforced errors.

The victory was Kostyuk's 21st in her past 22 matches on tour and she will be bidding to become the first Ukrainian player in history to reach the Wimbledon women's singles final.

She will next face No. 9 seed Linda Noskova for a place in her first Grand Slam final. Kostyuk leads their head-to-head 1-0 after a straight-set victory in the Madrid Open quarterfinals in May.