Big-hitting Rybakina powers into first Wimbledon final

Playing lawn tennis that was brutal in the extreme, and somehow also beautifully poised on the biggest occasion of her life, Elena Rybakina over-powered Simona Halep to reach a first Wimbledon final, where she will meet Ons Jabeur.

When you're hitting the ball as hard as the Kazakhstani was on her first Centre Court appearance and in her first Grand Slam semi-final – she was serving at up to 121mph and crushing her forehand at every opportunity – you're going to bring about a new world order on the lawns.

Rybakina's startling 6-3, 6-3 victory over Halep, the 2019 champion, means a new name will be engraved on the Venus Rosewater Dish, as well as tattooed on the public consciousness, on Saturday afternoon.

At only her second Wimbledon, 23-year-old Rybakina will be attempting to become the first player from Kazakhstan to win any Grand Slam while the Tunisian will be trying to make some history of her own as the first African to lift that trophy.

With the cancellation of The Championships 2020 because of the pandemic, and also her calf injury last year, Halep didn't play at the All England Club between 2019 and this summer. When adding her victories together, the Romanian went into this semi-final having won her last dozen matches on these courts, and within that run she was on a streak of 21 unbroken sets.

But she simply couldn't deal with Rybakina's power. Halep could easily have been 'bageled' here. While she won three games in the opening set, she survived at least one break point in each one.

We have heard a lot during these Championships about how Halep has rediscovered her love for tennis, having been "super close to stopping" last year, and having felt "down", "exhausted" and generally battered by the tennis life as recently as this spring.

While there has been much to enjoy about a joyful Halep this Fortnight, this was the occasion when she realised that love can't help you very much when you're facing gargantuan serves.

Going into this semi-final, Halep had won more than half of her service games all Fortnight, which was an astonishing hit-rate. But she broke just once in this match, and that was when, from nowhere, Rybakina produced a game of errors. That was Rybakina's only loose game in an otherwise composed performance.

"I'm really happy with my performance as I played a solid match," Rybakina said. "Usually I have mental ups and downs but today I was mentally prepared, and it was a great match."

Some will describe Rybakina as a 'serve-bot'. A more complimentary way of putting it is that she is top of two aces leaderboards – the one for this Fortnight (she's hit 49 of them already), and also for the season so far (she's the only woman over 200).

When you're serving that big, as Rybakina has been doing, a fair few of those balls aren't going to come back.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. That has been the soundtrack of Rybakina's summer, as her aces have collided with the dark green backstop. Expect to hear that noise again on Saturday.