Navarro on surging Paolini: “She was a totally different player”

Jasmine Paolini has surged into the spotlight since the start of Roland-Garros, winning 11 of her last 12 matches at the majors, and rising from 15 in the world to No 5 in the live rankings on the strength of a string of eye-opening, career-changing wins.

Emma Navarro, who was blasted off the court by the 28-year-old firecracker on Tuesday at Wimbledon, knows first-hand of the evolution of her game.

Navarro entered Tuesday’s quarter-final clash with a 3-0 lifetime record against Paolini. All three of those victories had come in the last year, with the last occurring as recently as the Miami Open in March.

But today’s Paolini, riding high on confidence from a trip to her maiden major final in Paris, is a totally different animal, says the American.

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“She was a totally different player today than when I played her in the past,” the 23-year-old said after falling 6-2, 6-1 in 58 minutes. “I felt like in our previous meetings I was the aggressor, I was the one controlling points, getting ahead at the beginning of points, then controlling the rallies, too. I felt just the opposite of that today.”

Navarro came into the quarter-finals riding a wave after taking out former Grand Slam champions Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff in the second and fourth rounds, respectively, on Centre Court.

Today, she was cooled off by the hotter player.

“I felt like she was just on top of me from the very first point,” she said. “I struggled to push back against that.”

Paolini may only be 5’3″ but she’s dialing in her serve as well, says Navarro.

“I feel like she served really well, too,” she said, adding: “When I played her before, I felt like return games were opportunities where I could get ahead and play aggressively. I didn’t feel that at all today. Same when I was serving, just felt a lot of pressure from her.”

A grass guru?

Paolini had never won a match at Wimbledon prior to this year. She had never even won a tour-level match on grass prior to 24, in fact. Now she’s looking like a grass guru, as the first Italian woman to ever reach the last four at SW19.

Her lack of success at Wimbledon may have something to do with the draw, however. We’ll let Paolini explain:

“Maybe I didn’t realize before, but my coach was telling me that I could play well [on grass],” she said.
“I wasn’t believing too much. I think also the last two years I played against Kvitova first round, so it was tough to believe it.”

Now, she believes. Special thanks to Kvitova, who sat this Wimbledon out while giving birth to a baby boy.

Next, Paolini will face Donna Vekic for a chance to reach back-to-back Slam finals in two months’ time.

She’s still surprised at how well she is playing, but a little self-coaching has helped her start to feel better.

“I felt great also in Eastbourne. I was hitting well the ball on this surface, moving well,” she said. “I was repeating to myself, ‘Okay, it’s nice to play on grass. You can play well.’

“Yeah, I didn’t expect to do a semifinals here at all.”

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