Marta Kostyuk lost a second consecutive Grand Slam semifinal after being denied a place in the Wimbledon final by ninth seed Linda Noskova.
Kostyuk, who reached the final four at a major for the first time at Roland Garros, was beaten in straight sets by Noskova, 6-4, 6-4.
The Czech star will now fight for the Wimbledon title against compatriot Karolina Muchova, who knocked out Coco Gauff in her semifinal.
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It will be the first women’s singles final in SW19 to feature two players from the same country since the all-American affair in 2009 between Serena Williams and Venus Williams.
After the loss, Kostyuk highlighted her struggles to break Noskova’s serve, which left her frustrated when facing the media.
Marta Kostyuk reacts to her semifinal defeat at Wimbledon
“I broke her once,” said Kostyuk in her post-match press conference. “But generally I almost didn’t even come close to break points or anything. It was difficult.
“I wasn’t even serving that bad today. Just, first of all, she was really good on second-serve return.
“I felt obviously more under pressure because I don’t remember what was her first-serve percentage, but it was insane.
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“She won like 90% of first serves, which is crazy, especially against someone like me who returns well.
It was tough. Again, I tried my best. All I can take is this.”
Noskova actually only recorded a first-serve win percentage of 76%, and fired just one ace throughout the match.
But she was broken just once by Kostyuk, and tallied three breaks of serve herself.
The 24-year-old continued: “Mostly, I was irritated today with how many lines she hit on the serve. That was it. This was the only thing I was irritated with today.”
Marta Kostyuk discusses potential improvements to her game
Asked what she needs to improve on to become a Grand Slam champion, Kostyuk replied: “A little bit of luck maybe would be good. I didn’t have any in both matches.
“I mean, honestly, jokes aside, I think it’s important factor, because a lot of things need to align for you to win the title. To play a good match, to be at the level where I am, it’s not an easy thing to do. That for sure.
“Again, I don’t know. It’s difficult to even compare these matches, because for me they are super different. It’s not like there is a pattern that happens and I’m like, Oh, I need to change this, because it happened twice.
“There is always something that you can get better at: return, serve, not rushing, your focus, everything. Everything has to be a constant improvement. I cannot point out, like, one or two things that I think.
“First of all, I didn’t even talk to Sandra about the match yet, so it’s going to happen tomorrow or maybe when we start practicing.
“But yeah, I mean, two times. I played my first semifinal one month ago, and now I’m playing second. It’s a bit of a short time span for these things to kind of create a pattern in some way. I’m hoping I’m going to have a lot more opportunities.”
With her run at Wimbledon, Kostyuk has moved up from world number 13 to 11 in the live WTA rankings.
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