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THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Iga Świątek beat Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in the Wimbledon women’s final Saturday.
Poland’s No. 8 seed prevailed over the No. 13 seed from the United States in a one-sided clinic of a match, ultimately decided by Anisimova’s nerves, Świątek’s clear-headed tactics and the relentlessness that makes her one of the best players in the world.
This is Świątek’s first Wimbledon title, and her sixth Grand Slam title. She is the only active WTA Tour player to hold Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces, is now 6-0 in major finals and is second behind Venus Williams (seven) among active WTA players with the most majors.
It was just the second double bagel in a Grand Slam final in the Open Era, and the first since 1988, when Steffi Graf won the French Open against Natasha Zvereva by the same scoreline. The match lasted only 57 minutes.
The Athletic’s writers, Charlie Eccleshare and Matt Futterman, analyze the final, and what it means for tennis.
What do Grand Slam nerves look like?
This was always a danger for a first-time Grand Slam finalist. Świątek had played five before today and never lost one; Anisimova had never been on this stage before.
The American could tell herself for two days since the semis that it was just tennis, the sport she had played her whole life. The court was the same dimensions. Just another match.
And then she walked onto Centre Court in the late afternoon sunshine. There’s Princess Catherine of Wales, in the Royal Box with a cadre of luminaries. Well, that’s fine. Wimbledon is a major. Famous people come to watch play every day.
And then, unlike her other six matches this fortnight, Anisimova stepped up to the line and… her serve just wouldn’t go in. Then her fearsome, peerless backhand wouldn’t go in. On the other side of the net, Świątek was returning everything and missing nothing.
Everything looked ready to crumble from there, and that was the story of the first set for Anisimova, a portrait of nerves in action.
Amanda Anisimova’s nerves saw the first set of her Wimbledon final against Iga Swiatek race away from her. (Visionhaus / Getty Images)
She won just nine points to 27 for Świątek. She made 14 unforced errors. Her backhand kept tumbling into the net.
The worst of it was the serve, the shot where each player controls their own destiny. Anisimova kept catching her toss. She made just 33 percent of her first serves. She hit three double faults. It was as though her arms were not attached to the rest of her body.
There’s no other explanation. A Grand Slam final. A Wimbledon final. The Princess of Wales. As Carlos Alcaraz said after his first match here this year, “Wimbledon is different.”
Especially the final.
Matt Futterman
How did Swiatek dominate Anisimova’s strength?
Anisimova’s biggest strength is her backhand, and so it might have seemed counterintuitive for Świątek to target it in the first set.
But in so doing, she opened up a world of possibilities for herself, while telling Anisimova that her best shot wasn’t going to trouble her.
She was constantly moving Anisimova off balance and out of the court by breaking the sideline with her backhands, creating space to exploit on the other side. This was a particularly effective play because Świątek possesses probably the best inside-out backhand in the sport, and that’s where the space was to hit into once the players had traded backhands.
When Anisimova got to the ball on the deuce side, her forehand was wayward. She started going for too much, aware of how well Świątek was retrieving, which contributed to the 14 unforced errors she hit in the first set alone, compared to just three winners.
Attacking her backhand also sent out a message that Świątek didn’t fear her opponent’s biggest strength. She’s been criticized for not being as tactically astute as before over the past year, but this was a brutally clear-headed performance.
Charlie Eccleshare
What does this mean for Swiatek’s legacy?
For Świątek, winning Wimbledon may be the most stunning yet predictable moment of what was already a Hall of Fame career.
A month ago, she seemed rattled. The losses had been piling up and she had failed to defend three clay-court titles, including her favorite, the French Open. Her world ranking tumbled to No. 8.
But Świątek had also made the semifinals in both previous majors in 2025, and had been showing signs of embedding the controlled aggression that she and her coach Wim Fissette wanted to be the bread and butter of her game.
That has certainly happened.
In a matter of weeks, she has flipped the script and solved the puzzle — and on the grass of Wimbledon, the surface on which she was wrongly and too quickly written off.
In part, the loss of those three titles may have been a help. The weight of expectation went away. But most of all, Świątek has done what all the great players have done at this tournament. She has thrived where greatness thrives, playing tennis and thinking her way through her shots and her matches.
And in less than an hour today, she became Wimbledon champion, giving her six Grand Slam titles, including one on every tennis surface, just as Ash Barty achieved before she dropped the mic with her retirement at the top of the sport in 2022.
That decision made Świątek the world No. 1. This title makes her the greatest since Serena Williams.
Matt Futterman
Does today prove a format change is needed?
When people advocate for making the latter stages of women’s Grand Slams best of five sets like the men’s events, it’s matches like this one that they have in mind.
The best-of-three format means that even after half an hour or less, it can be blindingly obvious which way a final is heading. This only adds to the pressure for the losing player, who feels like there’s no time to settle and that their childhood dream is turning into a nightmare.
Alcaraz lost the first five games of the 2023 men’s final to Novak Djokovic, but at least he knew there was plenty of time to turn things around.
The format is not why Anisimova got hammered in this final, but it adds to the sympathy everyone felt watching knowing that the match was likely to be over within an hour, as well as to the angst and awkwardness on Centre Court, where everyone was shellshocked at how awfully it was going for the first-time Grand Slam finalist.
Any individual sport is brutally exposing, but tennis is particularly so. If this had been boxing, Anisimova would have been knocked out in the first couple of rounds. That’s humiliating, but at least it’s over. Here, it was clear where the match was headed after a nervy, error-strewn first couple of games, but Anisimova could do nothing but keep plugging away.
There’s no option in tennis to run the clock down and go for damage limitation, and it’s hard to say where this leaves Anisimova. Hopefully, with a bit of distance, she can focus on how much of a breakthrough this tournament was. She made her first major final, and earned a win against the world No. 1, Aryna Sabalenka, to get there.
Maybe she can write this off as just a dreadful day where everything went wrong, but there’s also the psychological element of essentially having an anxiety dream play out in front of the watching world.
Her team will need to help the 23-year-old see the bigger picture in the next few weeks.
What did Iga Swiatek say after the final?
“I didn’t even dream of this because it seemed so far away,” she said on court. “I feel like I am already an experienced player, having won Slams before, but I never expected to win this one. So I want to thank my team for believing in me more than I did. And my coach. We have had ups and downs but have shown everybody it is working.”
What did Amanda Anisimova say after the final?
“I wish I could have put on a better performance for you today, but you guys have still been there for me and lifted me up, so thank you so much,” she said in her on-court interview.
“Without some of my family flying in, I definitely would not be standing here … My mom’s put in more work than I have, honestly,” Anisimova added, through tears. “Thank you for being here and breaking the superstition of flying in. It’s definitely not why I lost today.
“I’m going to keep putting in the work and I always believe in myself, so I hope I’m going to be back here one day.”
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(Top photo: Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
