Ajla Tomljanovic’s brilliant return to tennis has hit a new peak as the Australian ace reached her first WTA grass court final in the Birmingham Classic to stand on the verge of the biggest triumph of her 15-year career.
Tomljanovic’s 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 victory over Russian seventh seed Anastasia Potapova in the pre-Wimbledon tournament at Edgbaston on Saturday left the 31-year-old quite emotional, as she clenched her fists tight and looked to the heavens.
“I definitely didn’t expect to play a final here. I really take it one match at a time, as cliched as it is,” beamed the player who was Australian number one this time last year before a series of injury, illness and surgery setbacks saw her world ranking plummet to its current 190.
But Tomljanovic, the Australian number 10, stands to shoot back to number three while soaring back to number 116 in the world should she defeat old Kazakh rival Yulia Putintseva in Sunday’s unexpected match-up between two non-seeds.
It’s also a fantastic boost for Tomljanovic as she prepares for Wimbledon — where she’s twice reached the quarterfinal — before representing Australia at the Paris Olympics.
“Whenever I’ve done well, I’ve never looked ahead, and I’m not going to do it now either,” she said.
“I’m going to do my best to prepare, give it my all tomorrow, and when it’s over, reflect on the week.”
After missing most of 2023 with a knee injury and requiring surgery this year to remove uterine fibroids, it would represent an extraordinary achievement if Tomljanovic was to lift a WTA crown in her 180th main draw.
Her record against Putintseva — who is as feisty on court as she is cheerful off it — is not great, having lost four of their five meetings, but they’ve never played on grass, and Tomljanovic is striking the ball beautifully on her favoured surface after only being back for the past month following four months sidelined.
Tomljanovic did win a WTA 125 event in Brazil at the end of last year, but that’s seen by the women’s governing body as effectively a second-tier Challenger trophy, so victory at Edgbaston Priory would be considered Tomljanovic’s first tour-level title after losing four previous finals.
Tomljanovic dominated world number 36 Potapova early on, cashing in on a series of early double faults from the Russian, who dished up seven in all.
Tomljanovic was broken when serving for the set at 5-4, yet held her nerve better in the subsequent tiebreak as the often erratic Potapova made two backhand errors to gift the stanza to the Australian.
After the match went with serve in the second, scoreboard pressure again cranked up on Potapova, Tomljanovic breaking her to 15 to annex the victory in just over an hour-and-a-half.
Meanwhile at the Queen’s Club Championship, Australian Jordan Thompson suffered the double agony of a narrow defeat to Lorenzo Musetti in the biggest semifinal of his career being compounded by a back injury.
Thompson, playing the first semi-final of an ATP 500 event in his 11-year career, put up a fight to forge back after losing the first set but eventually succumbed 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to the graceful Italian, who’d also beaten Australian No.1 Alex de Minaur earlier in the week.
Worse still, Thompson’s big day ended with him having to leave Queen’s to get treated for the back injury that he suffered early in the second set.
The Australian number two had planned to fly off to Mallorca after the London event to play in a final warm-up tournament before Wimbledon.
But with the extent of his injury problem yet to be determined, he was left admitting ruefully when asked if he would still be playing in Spain: “Probably 99 per cent no. I’ll get ready for Wimbledon and get healthy.”
