Never expected I would come this far: Karolina

TIL Desk Sports/ Eighth seed Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic was aiming for a second week at Wimbledon but never expected she would make it to her maiden All England Club final, and her first Grand Slam final since 2016.

“Coming into this tournament, the dream was to make the second week, of course, because I was not in (a Grand Slam) second week for a while,” Karolina said after defeating Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in three sets on Thursday.”Never I thought about maybe going into the final,” Karolina told.

It has been nearly five years since Pliskova reached her only prior major final at the 2016 US Open, which she lost to Germany’s Angelique Kerber. The Czech now has another shot at her first Grand Slam title thanks to her nearly two-hour comeback win against Aryna.

“After losing the first set, I thought it was going to be super tough to win this match. Then to win two sets in a row with the way how she was serving today — I think she was serving incredible, all my chances she just put amazing serves in. Super proud about the way how I handled the situation out there, the second and third set, and that I served out the match,” said Karolina.