WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Marketa Vondrousova has taken the first set of the Wimbledon women’s final against Ons Jabeur by a 6-4 score.
They traded early breaks of serve and it was 2-all after 23 minutes of play at Centre Court on Saturday.
They again traded breaks — each one at love — and it was 4-all after 34 minutes.
But Jabeur’s mistakes kept coming, and Vondrousova collected the opening set’s last four games.
The main stadium’s retractable roof was shut at the beginning of the match.
The winner will become a first-time Grand Slam champion. They went into Saturday’s title match with a combined record of 0-3 in major finals.
The No. 6-seeded Jabeur, a 28-year-old from Tunisia, was the runner-up at the All England Club and at the U.S. Open last season.
She is the only Arab woman or North African woman to participate in a Grand Slam singles final.
The 42nd-ranked Vondrousova, a 24-year-old from the Czech Republic, lost in the 2019 French Open final as a teenager.
She is the first unseeded finalist at Wimbledon since Billie Jean King made it that far in 1963. King was in the front row of the Royal Box on Saturday, sitting alongside Kate, the Princess of Wales.
The chair umpire Saturday is Louise Azémar Engzell.
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