Against a player she had never beaten before, Elina Svitolina pulled off a stirring come-from-behind victory by the narrowest of margins Sunday to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the second time in her career.

In a meeting between the last two mothers remaining in the singles draw (out of six), Svitolina overcame No.19 seed Victoria Azarenka 2-6, 6-4, 7-6[9] in a 2-hour and 46-minute comeback thriller.

Wimbledon: Scores | Draws | Order of play

The victory marked Svitolina’s first career win over Azarenka in six attempts, and she had to work hard. Svitolina trailed former Azarenka by a set and a break at 6-2, 2-0, then held off a third-set comeback by Azarenka before squeaking out the match-tiebreak.

Swiatek next up: In the quarterfinals, Svitolina will take on World No.1 Iga Swiatek for the first time since her return to action after her yearlong maternity leave. Swiatek won their only previous meeting, in the 2021 Rome quarterfinals on clay 6-2, 7-5.

Read more: Swiatek saves match points to beat Bencic

Words from the victor: "When I was 0-2 down, I was really feeling bad because I didn't show up for the match to just play like that," Svitolina said after her win over Azarenka. "I was really upset about that. Just told myself that I have to fight. I have to give everything here. 

"Then in the end, just slowly got back into the match. Yeah, this mindset really pushed me through because I have no right to complain, you know, in this situation. I just had to go out there and fight.

"It's a new chapter for me. I want to bring something new. So far it's been working well. If something would be off, I would probably do something different. So far the balance [has] been fine, and results confirm this."

A wild-card winner: Svitolina becomes the first wild card to reach the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam event since Sabine Lisicki’s semifinal run at Wimbledon in 2011. Svitolina is also just the third player in the Open Era to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals as a wild card, along with Zheng Jie in 2008 and Lisicki.

The former World No.3 Svitolina is a win away from matching her career-best showing at Wimbledon. She reached her first career Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon in 2019, where she fell to eventual champion Simona Halep.

Comeback rolls on: Svitolina’s return from maternity leave remains in full swing. After giving birth to daughter Skaï in October of 2022, Svitolina came back to tour in April.

Svitolina’s comeback clicked into place with a title run at Strasbourg, where she became the fourth-lowest-ranked player to win a singles title at No.508. She then posted a quarterfinal showing at Roland Garros, and has now reached the quarterfinals at her first two Grand Slam events since coming back on tour.

This is the first time Svitolina has reached the quarterfinals at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year. This is also the first time she has reached consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals since she backed up her 2019 Wimbledon semifinal with a run to the semifinals of the 2019 US Open.

Key moments: Azarenka was in charge of the first set, winning all seven of her net points and never dropping serve. An early service break pushed Azarenka to a 2-0 lead in the second set.

However, Svitolina quickly pulled back level at 2-2 as she started to power through the court more frequently. Svitolina saw four break points erased at 4-3, but she got two more opportunities at 5-4, and she converted her second set point with a powerful down-the-line groundstroke.

Svitolina saw a 3-0 lead in the third set slip away as Azarenka found patches of superb serving to stay with the unseeded player. But Svitolina also had routine service games during the second half of the set, and they moved into the decisive 10-point match-tiebreak.

The tiebreak was a representation of the match as a whole, with the lead changing hands often through 7-7. Svitolina hit an incredible passing winner to move ahead 8-7, but Azarenka countered for 8-8 after a down-the-line forehand kissed the sideline, setting up a forecourt winner.

Azarenka pulled off a nearly identical play to save Svitolina’s first match point at 9-8. However, a Svitolina drop shot at the end of another intense rally forced an Azarenka error and led to a second match point at 10-9, this time on Svitolina’s service.

Having the serve in her control made all the difference, as Svitolina fired her eighth ace to close out the win.