LONDON — Karolina Pliskova‘s tennis success is predicated on a big serve, which rewards her with plenty of easy points and can get her out of trouble when needed.
Thanks largely to that stroke, she is headed to the Wimbledon semifinals for the first time.
Pliskova claimed 24 of 26 points on her serve in one stretch, hit eight aces and saved the only three break chances she faced on the way to a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Viktorija Golubic on Tuesday at the All England Club.
“I feel like I’m improving with every match. … Everything today was working quite well,” said Pliskova, the 2016 US Open runner-up and a former No. 1-ranked player. “I just feel my game is good the last two weeks, even in the practices.”
She averaged 106.5 mph on her first serves, 20.5 mph faster than Golubic, with the retractable roof at No. 1 Court shut because of rain.
Pliskova has been broken only three times through five matches so far and she has not dropped a set. She also hasn’t played anyone ranked better than 47th yet, but will meet No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka for a berth in the final.
The other women’s quarterfinal, scheduled for later Tuesday, was No. 1 Ash Barty vs. Ajla Tomljanovic. The winner of that match will meet 2018 champion Angelique Kerber, who beat No. 19 Karolina Muchova 6-2, 6-3.
Sabalenka, who has won more matches this year than anyone else in women’s tennis, rolled past No. 21 Ons Jabeur of Tunisia in her quarterfinals match 6-4, 6-3.
Playing in her first major quarterfinal, the Belarusian used her attacking style against Jabeur, being aggressive with her strokes and court position while having more winners than unforced errors.
Kerber, who lost in the first round at the French Open, advanced to the Wimbledon semifinals for the fourth time by beating an erratic Muchova, who had 27 unforced errors and only nine winners.
Kerber, 33, earned her 80th career grass-court victory, including 11 this year. Last month the German won her first title in nearly three years on grass at Bad Homburg.
The crowd was allowed to be at full capacity Tuesday for the first time during the tournament after COVID-19 restrictions placed a 50% cap on attendance when the fortnight began.
This is the first time in the Open era, which began in 1968, that there were six first-time women’s quarterfinalists at the All England Club. That group included both the eighth-seeded Pliskova, a 29-year-old from the Czech Republic, and the unseeded Golubic, a 28-year-old from Switzerland.
Pliskova served first and got pushed to deuce in the opening game, when she was called for a second-serve foot fault. But from there, she kept Golubic at a safe distance, dropping a total of two points in her following half-dozen service games combined.
Only with Pliskova up a set and a break at 4-2 in the second did the 66th-ranked Golubic, who uses a one-handed backhand, make a bit of a stand. In a game that lasted more than 10 minutes and included Golubic’s full trio of break points – the first set up by another foot-fault double-fault – Pliskova was put to the test.
She erased the first break point with a 113 mph service winner, the second with a 101 mph ace and the last with a quick-strike forehand winner set up by a 115 mph serve.
In addition to her big serve, Pliskova did plenty else to accrue a 28-10 edge in winners, including volleying her way to grab 17 of the 21 points that she finished at the net.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.