Ajla Tomljanovic optimistic ahead of Wimbledon despite falling short in Birmingham”

Tomljanovic is using a special ranking of No. 33 to enter Wimbledon, and is optimistic that she can perform well.

“I'm excited. I have some amazing memories there,” he said.

“Having about a week to prepare gives me some peace of mind. Tennis-wise, I'm in a good place, and I think another week on the grass will only help me feel even more settled.

“In a way, losing today, it's keeping that edge in me that I'm not satisfied, and I'm not going into Wimbledon like, 'I just won a tournament,' which would be a very different atmosphere.

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“I'm definitely hungry for Wimbledon and to do well there, and hopefully I can get my happy ending there.”

Putintseva, who has won four of her previous five meetings with Tomljanovic, was on the verge of being flawless, hitting Tomljanovic off the court for the first half hour of the final.

At 6-1 and 2-0, the 41st-ranked Kazakh had only lost two service points.

Short ball? Putintseva would smash a winner, most of the time with her backhand. If Tomljanovic managed to get into the net? Putintseva would throw it and the ball would land inches inside the baseline. If Tomljanovic stayed too deep on the court? Putintseva would uncover a wonderfully weighted drop shot.

But suddenly everything changed unexpectedly.

Tomljanovic hit a forehand for the winner and Putintseva eventually missed a shot. Love-30 became a service break, against the tide. The Australian began by winning many of the long rallies that she almost always lost before.

The comeback began in earnest, and went into overdrive when Tomljanovic burned an in-and-out forehand return winner to break again for a 4-3 lead.

However, Tomljanovic stumbled with a third set in sight. Back-to-back errors saw her slip to 0-30 and then 15-40 as she tried to serve out the second set.

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She broke back at two, then won a set point, which sent Putintseva off the grass and into the court decks, only to double fault the next three points to fall back to five.

A blistering break followed, starting with Putintseva's first and only double fault before she won the next four points to once again have Tomljanovic on the back foot.

But while Putintseva's mood darkened at times, the Australian remained stoic. Tomljanovic maintained an aggressive approach, for better or for worse, and roared back, hitting a spectacular forehand winner for a second set point.

This proved to be his last chance, and he went and went on a missed comeback. Tomljanovic avoided two championship points but dragged a forehand in the third to surrender the title.

“It shows me that I'm not far, but at the same time, what it shows me the most is that I still have a way to go physically,” Tomljanovic said.

“I'm not 100 percent happy with how I'm playing, but I want to give myself a break because I'm finding ways to win … and I'm very happy with how I've managed to do it all this week because I was in moments difficult in previous rounds.

“I see a lot of room for improvement, to get better physically, but you can't rush it, so it's going to take some time. But nothing hurts more than it should, and that's a big, big plus.”

Setbacks doomed: Aussie Ajla in track final, but Thompson loses

Ajla Tomljanovic's latest comeback is gathering steam ahead of Wimbledon, advancing to the final of the Rothesay Classic in Birmingham and a win of her first WTA title.

But the news was not so good for fellow Australian Jordan Thompson, who needed to win his Queen's Club semi-final in London against Italian rising star Lorenzo Musetti to be seeded at a Grand Slam for the first time.

Musetti, who stunned Australia's top player and last year's runner-up Alex de Minaur in the first round, denied Thompson the feat in a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 result that reserved for him his first final on a grass court, after arriving on the court. the semi-finals in Stuttgart last week.

The biggest concern for Thompson will be a back injury that has hampered him throughout the match, and he hopes it will not linger with Wimbledon from July 1.

Tomljanovic has endured a horror stretch with injury and illness over the past year and a half since the 2022 season, where she made the last 16 at Wimbledon for the second time and at the US Open, including the end of the legendary serena williams career .

A knee injury ruined her 2023 campaign, while she underwent surgery in February this year to remove uterine fibroids, which sidelined her for three months.

Tomljanovic entered this year's Wimbledon Championships with a special ranking of No.33 to avoid having to qualify and will arrive confident after defeating Russian seventh seed Anastasia Potapova 7-6 (7-5), 6 -4 in a semi-semi of 90 minutes. end saturday

The 31-year-old did not hide her elation after Potapova's backhand sank into the net. She will face Yulia Putintseva in the final, after the Kazakh beat Italy's Elisabetta Cocciaretto 6-2, 6-2 in the previous semi-final.

Tomljanovic won a 125-level WTA tournament in Florianópolis, Brazil last year, but this would be her first title on the main tour.

“I definitely didn't expect to play a final here, just because I really take it one game at a time, so [of] it's a cliché,” said the world No.190.

“As long as I've done well, I've never looked ahead, and I won't do it now either. I'll do my best to prepare and give it my all tomorrow, then when it's over I'll reflect on the week. But you know you're in a good place when the players' room is empty.”

Tomljanovic was the better player for most of the match against Potapova, but stumbled to take the first set 5-4 – after also a set point in the previous match – and let slip 5-1 in the tiebreak when he doubled. -he failed to fall back to five-all.

But strong defense from the Australian two points later helped her secure the set, when Potapova narrowly missed a backhand down the line in search of a winner.

Potapova, who hit eight double faults and 39 unforced errors, held for most of the second set after avoiding another break point in the second game but fell to 15-40 at 4-5 before a another errant setback cost him the game.

Tomljanovic hit 71 percent of her first serves and won 36 of those 48 points in an encouraging performance as she prepares to return to the grass court after a knee injury ruled her out last year.

“I just tried to keep a cool head,” he said. “I felt like I was going a little too far” at first, and I was wasting a lot of energy just worrying about every point. I just tried to let it go [and have an attitude of] “Whatever happens” and focus on what I can control.

Thompson, who upset top 20 stars Holger Rune and Taylor Fritz this week, will remain one of the most dangerous unseeded floaters in the Wimbledon men's draw, along with 2021 finalist Matteo Berrettini and 2023 fourth-finalist Chris Eubanks.

He lost the first three games of his semi-final, but had back-to-back chances in the seventh game to fight his way back to the set before Musetti grabbed a one-set lead.

The second set could hardly have been more different. Thompson raced into a 5-0 lead, but another back massage at the change of ends preceded a brief counter-attack from Musetti, who got back one of the breaks and almost a second when the match was decided.

The Sydneysider began to drive the net more often, only because of Musetti's fabulous shot-making – which resulted in 31 winners to Thompson's 22, as well as fewer unforced errors – and defense from the line background to dominate the day.

Thompson saved three break points in the penultimate game, but not a fourth, with Musetti serving out the match to love. He will play the winner of the American showdown between Tommy Paul and Sebastian Korda.

“It's one of the toughest games this week,” Musetti said.

“Jordan was playing at a really amazing level, especially the second set and the third set. It was a very tight and very tough match there at 4-3, when I played some amazing shots that gave me the break. I didn't shake, even under pressure … so I'm really proud of what I'm achieving this week.”