WTA125 Ilkley: Rebecca Marino vs Iva Jovic final analysis
A dream first pro tournament on grass
In her professional debut on grass at the Lexus Ilkley Open, rising 17-year old Iva Jovic (WTA #129) won the first WTA 125 title of her career — her biggest to date — and secured first-time entry into the Top-100, after a jump to #89 in the latest rankings update.
Jovic’s memorable title run featured several seasoned opponents, a trio of 3-set wins at the start of the week that lifted her record in deciding sets this year to 8-1 and a dominant weekend finish that had the teenager conceding just 7 games in the semis and final combined.
Jovic’s path to the Ilkley title
R1: def. Rebeka Masarova (#121) 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
R2: def. Varvara Lepchenko (#118) 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-0
QF: def. Talia Gibson (#126) 6-3, 3-6, 6-2
SF: def. Viktorija Golubic (#78, seed 2) 6-0, 6-3
Final: def. Rebecca Marino (#106, seed 8) 6-1, 6-3
Match analysis
Defending champion Rebecca Marino entered the title decider on a 9-match win streak at Ilkley but had no answer to Jovic’s scorching start. The promising American raced to a 5-0 lead and sealed the opener in 27 minutes with some great serving and an unmatched baseline game.
📺 source: WTA Unlocked
By now, Marino’s confidence in her forehand had disappeared. She started the second set leaking 4 unforced errors from that wing to fall an early break behind yet again.
While Jovic continued to play superbly from the back all the way to the end, Marino found her way against Jovic’s serve and hit some aggressive returns. The Canadian created 3 break points during her first 2 return games of the second set, desperately needing to convert one to get back in the match. Jovic responded by saving them with a pair of crosscourt forehands that extracted errors and a winning body serve in between.
Soon after, Jovic led 6-1 5-1 and stood at championship point. Only a Marino lunge followed by quick net reactions kept the match alive.
The defending champion blasted 2 aces to hold and then finally broke Jovic’s serve for the first time in the match to cut the gap to 3-5.
Any thoughts Jovic was getting tight were quickly set aside in the following game, as the teenager produced 2 winning backhands and profited from 2 more forehand errors from Marino to win 4 straight points and seal the title.
We already hinted that Marino was no match for Jovic once a rally developed.
Final match stats showed the teenager won nearly twice more baseline duels (43 to 23) as well as total rallies (51 to 27).
Total rallies won: Marino 27 / Jovic 51
In points that lasted 2 or fewer shots*, Marino collected a 30-24 advantage.
Otherwise, Jovic won 41 of 57 points that reached a 3rd shot, i.e. the ones featuring “serve+1s” that landed correctly in court.
0-2 shots won: Marino 30 / Jovic 24
3+ shots won: Marino 16 / Jovic 41
* 0=double fault; 1=unreturned serve, 2=return as the last valid shot in court
While Jovic finished the Ilkley final with solid and nearly identical performances from both wings (-8 and -9 differentials on forehands and backhands, respectively), Marino’s title hopes were severly hampered by 32 forehand errors.
The resulting -26 differential was 18 points worse than Jovic’s -8 and ended up matching almost entirely the final 19-point winning margin (65 to 46).
Forehand Performances
Marino: 6 winners / 32 errors = -26
Jovic: 7 winners / 15 errors = -8
Backhand Performances
Marino: 2 winners / 17 errors = -15
Jovic: 8 winners / 17 errors = -9
Rebecca Marino (WTA #106, seed 8) vs Iva Jovic (WTA #129)
2025 Ilkley final - Match Data
Set by Set Stats
Strokes Breakdown
Direction of winning shots and unforced errors (only groundstrokes)
Serve and Return
1st Serves
2nd Serves
Return & rallying performance
Rally length
Points won breakdown
This final section gives a last, broader look at the match by presenting how each player won points. Points are listed according to their frequency (highest to lowest) and are named in relation to the last touch on the ball. For simplicity, groundstrokes hit from the 5th shot onwards are grouped together.
Breakdown by side (FHs or BHs)
Breakdown by error type (UFEs or FEs)
To find out more about the stats published here, please visit the following post.
While we follow the same criteria used on all major tennis events, our stats are collected through our own video analysis and are not official WTA or ITF stats.
Thanks for reading!
— Tennis Inside Numbers