TENNIS.com's 2024 WTA Match of the Year: Jasmine Paolini beats Donna Vekic in historic Wimbledon semifinal

What should the criteria be for a Match of the Year? Should it be the one that made our jaws drop the farthest with the quality of its play? Or should it be the one that stirred our emotions to the highest point with its spellbinding theater?

If you favor peak quality, then Iga Swiatek’s win over Aryna Sabalenka in the Madrid final would surely be your pick. For three hours and three roller-coaster sets, the WTA’s two best players traded haymakers, and the momentum, back and forth until Swiatek saved match points and survived.

Most seasons, that would be more than enough for me to make it the Match of the Year. But in 2024, there was one drama that surpassed it: Jasmine Paolini’s comeback win over Donna Vekic in the Wimbledon semifinals.

Its appeal began with its setting. No arena in tennis can transform a match into must-see drama like Centre Court on a sunny, roof-free afternoon, in the later rounds, with an audience primed to see the best the sport has to offer. With all due respect to the Mutua Madrid Open, it’s Wimbledon that every young tennis player dreams of winning.

Which brings us to the two players in this match.

Neither is so young anymore, and it seems unlikely that either seriously believed she would ever be a Wimbledon champion before this fortnight began. Paolini, 28, had made the main draw three times previously, and lost in the first round each time. Vekic, also 28, had played the event nine times, and been past the third round just once. Earlier in 2024, Vekic had admitted that her struggles and disappointments—in 43 majors, she had lost in the first round 20 times—had caused her to consider hanging up her racquet early.

All of that changed as the season went on. Together, the Italian and the Croatian made for two of the most pleasantly surprising, and ultimately heartbreaking, stories of the year. Paolini would come out of nearly nowhere to reach the Roland Garros and Wimbledon finals, but would fall short of victory both times. Vekic would make the Olympic gold-medal match, but also fall short, to Zheng Qinwen. As they fought tooth and nail through this semifinal, their emotions must have veered wildly, between the shock that they had made it this far at Wimbledon, and the fear that they might not have another opportunity like this one to win the game’s most prestigious prize.

Paolini and Vekic were both Cinderellas on this day, but they presented a stark contrast in styles and demeanors. At 5-foot-4, the Italian speedster scampered from corner to corner and baseline to net, leapt and spun for volleys, and smiled her way past her mistakes. Vekic, 5-foot-10 and heavier of both shot and foot, looked grim, broody and determined as she shut her eyes and breathed deeply between points.

Paolini had won two of their three prior meetings, but Vekic jumped out of the gates quickly this time, and won the first set 6-2. Vekic’s strong serve, battering-ram forehand, and backhand drop shot had Paolini scrambling, mostly futilely, for her life.

Together, the Italian and the Croatian made for two of the most pleasantly surprising, and ultimately heartbreaking, stories of the year.

But the fans wanted something more than a blowout, and they were quick to approve when Paolini showed signs of life early in the second set. She began to win points at net, to flatten her forehand and match Vekic’s pace, and to walk with more energy and shout encouragement to herself. The crowd remained a wind in Paolini’s sails as the points and games grew longer and tougher in the second set. Forehand winners, backhand winners, drops, lobs, angles, touch volleys: Everything was happening now.

At 4-4, during another frenetic all-court rally, Vekic sent what looked like a winning topspin lob over Paolini’s head. Somehow, the Italian chased it down and flipped a lob back over her head as she ran toward the back wall. Vekic, with too much time to think about her smash, blasted it wide. Paolini led for the first time, and, to the crowd’s delight, would close the second set a game later with a forehand winner.

But just when the tide seemed to be shifting Paolini’s way, Vekic pushed back. She broke early in the third, re-established her forehand, and went up 3-1. With every winner, her coach, Pam Shriver, nodded her support. Shriver had climbed this mountain herself without ever reaching the top; the American made the Wimbledon semifinals in singles three times, but never the final. Was Vekic going to get her there?

Maybe all of that was too much for the Croat to handle. Or maybe the Italian just wasn’t going to be denied. The crucial moment came with Paolini serving at 1-3, 30-30. Two more points for Vekic, and she would have a double-break lead. Instead, Paolini grew braver, and better. At 30-30, she slapped crosscourt forehand winner. At 40-30, she bulldozed her way to the net and finished the game with a deft cross-court volley.

From there, the tension built as the score stayed even: 3-3, 4-4, 5-5. Serving at 5-6, Vekic faced a match point and, after an exhausting rally, saved it with a down the line forehand winner that dropped just inside the sideline. Afterward, she looked ready to fall over, but she soldiered on to hold, and force a 10-point tiebreaker that would decide who would play for the title.

Again, Vekic battered her ground strokes—near the end of the breaker, she put two huge winners on the lines—while Paolini dashed to the corners. Again, the score stayed close: 5-5, 6-6, 7-7, 8-8. Paolini approached the finish line first at 9-8, and this time her defense was one shot better than Vekic’s offense. Vekic hit two powerful balls, but she couldn’t make a third, as her final forehand fell just wide. Paolini danced her way to the net, a Grand Slam finalist for the second time in six weeks.

Read more: Jasmine Paolini’s magic green carpet ride to the Wimbledon final

“Today was really, really tough,” an ecstatic Paolini said. “At the beginning I was really struggling. She was serving really well. She was make me run every ball.”

“I was just trying to repeat to myself to keep going, try to be close to her, yeah, just believe that the match can turn whenever. It worked, I have to say.”

It was even harder for a tearful Vekic.

“I thought I was going to die in the third set, I had so much pain in my arm, in my leg,” she said. “My team tells me that I can be proud of myself. It’s tough right now. It’s really tough. For sure I will need to take a couple of days to see everything.”

Two days later, it would be Paolini’s turn to lose in bitterly valiant fashion, to Barbora Krejcikova, 6-4 in the third set in a final that was nearly as electric.

But for setting, emotion, drama, joy, heartache, shot-making, atmosphere—everything that goes into a great tennis match—nothing topped the Duel of the Cinderellas.