LONDON -- Rock star Antonello Venditi said it best after Italy lost an important football match. The measure of humans is best demonstrated by their behaviour in defeat. The marvellous, diminutive Jasmine Paolini lost the Wimbledon final in three sets 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to Czech Barbora Krejcikova, but in many ways she came out a winner and left an indelible impression on the crowd at Centre Court and TV viewers around the world. In her post-match on-court interview, she smiled brilliantly and made her fans feel a bit better even though they, like Jasmine, must have felt miserable.

 Krejcikova looked at the start as if she would blow Jasmine off the court just as Iga Swiatek had done at the French Open last month. Serving impeccably, Krejcikova put 90 percent of her first balls into play and won 84 percent of those points. It took her just 35 minutes to win the first set 6-2.

 Then came the inevitable bathroom break. Paolini left the court to recuperate and reset her game plan and, of course, disrupt the rhythm of her opponent. Why tennis allows this charade when by its own rules play is supposed to be continuous is one of the game’s unfathomable mysteries. Paolini bounded back from the gabinetto and quickly led Krejcikova 3-0. The Czech visibly drooped, and her first service percentage fell dramatically. In addition to a number of double faults, she hit 15 unforced errors and Paolini had no trouble polishing off the set 6-2.

 Like clockwork, Krejcikova abandoned the court for a bathroom break. They say turnabout is fair play, but this kind of gamesmanship is too blatant to go unremarked. After more than five minutes Krejcikova strolled back on court to discover that her first serve had improved and that her recent passive play had turned into tigerish aggression. Still, the two women stayed even until at 4 all in the deciding set Paolini briefly lost her focus and her serve.

 Down 4-5, the Italian, as the English say, made a fist of it and threatened to break back and level the match. She saved one championship point with her feisty, all-court defence. Then she saved a second championship point. She couldn’t, however, save a third.

 During the awards ceremony, Paolini was hands down the optical victor. Her smiling, sparkling, toothy smile was bright enough to light up Centre Court and the surrounding grounds of SW19. Before this year she had never won a match at Wimbledon. Now she’s the runner-up and one hopes that her game will remain at this high-flying level. But it’s only fair to mention that Krejcikova deserved this victory and indeed, on the basis of her previous results, deserved far more publicity and respect than she received. While Krejcikova lacks Jasmine’s personality, she has flown under the radar and achieved a sterling career that now features two Grand Slam titles to go along with her ten major doubles titles and the gold medal that she won at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In her calm and self-possessed manner, she’s bound for the Hall of Fame.