ROME – Italian tennis player, Jasmine Paolini, made history as she became the first Italian woman to reach the Wimbledon finals.

 The tennis star from Tuscany beat Donna Vekic after winning 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8). The match broke the record for the longest Wimbledon women’s semi-final with a play time of two hours and fifty minutes.

 Paolini, 28, had never won a match at Wimbledon before this year’s tournament, however her rise has been meteoric. Earlier this year she won the WTA 1000 singles title in Dubai.

 She is the first woman since Serena Williams in 2016 to reach the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year.

 Speaking after the match, Paolini said she “was serving really badly” so she was relieved by the outcome, labelling it as a match she “will remember forever.”

 The Italian will face Czech Barbora Krejickova in the finals on Saturday. This means that there will be a new winner of the Wimbledon women's singles.