Karolina Muchova’s run to her first Wimbledon final has featured plenty of memorable moments. One of the best came before the tournament even began.<\/p>\n
During the Bad Homburg final against Naomi Osaka, Muchova found herself in a lengthy baseline exchange. After patiently working the rally, Muchova finished it with a perfectly disguised drop shot. The ball landed just over the net, ending the point in an instant and earning June’s WTA Shot of the Month.<\/p>\n
The highlight came during what proved to be a short-lived final. Muchova raced through the opening set 6-1 and led 1-0 in the second before Osaka was forced to retire because of injury, giving Muchova her first career grass-court title and the perfect springboard into Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
The momentum carried straight into the All England Club.<\/p>\n
Muchova defeated Osaka again in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, this time in straight sets, before producing the biggest win of her fortnight in Thursday’s semifinal. Facing Coco Gauff, the Czech star saved a match point and survived a match-tiebreak to book her place in her first Wimbledon final and second Grand Slam singles final.<\/p>\n
The drop shot that stole the spotlight in Bad Homburg has hardly been a one-off. Throughout the grass-court season, Muchova has showcased the variety that has long made her one of the tour’s most distinctive players, blending changes of pace, sharp angles and soft hands into an all-court game capable of unsettling anyone across the net.<\/p>\n
Now, after one of the finest stretches of her career, Muchova is one win away from her first Grand Slam singles title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karolina Muchova’s run to her first Wimbledon final has featured plenty of memorable moments. One of the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,4277],"class_list":["post-534636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}