American Amanda Anisimova faces Poland's Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon women's final
Saturday's title match at Centre Court
is the first for Anisimova
, a 23-year-old American, at any Grand Slam tournament.
Swiatek, a 24-year-old from Poland, already owns five such trophies, going 5-0 in major finals,
but never had been this far
on the grass courts of the All England Club. She's been
the champion on the French Open's red clay
four times and on the U.S. Open's hard courts once.
The final is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. local time, which is 11 a.m. EDT.
Swiatek is listed as the money-line favorite at -250 by BetMGM Sportsbook. Anisimova is at +210.
They've never played each other as pros; Anisimova beat Swiatek in 2016 when they were juniors. Both were stars at that level: Anisimova defeated Coco Gauff for the 2017 U.S. Open junior title, while Swiatek was the Wimbledon junior champion the next year.
Whoever wins Saturday will be the eighth consecutive first-time Wimbledon champion.
Swiatek spent most of 2022, 2023 and 2024 at No. 1 in the WTA rankings but is seeded No. 8 at Wimbledon after going more than a year without claiming a title anywhere.
She served a one-month doping ban last year
after failing an out-of-competition drug test; an investigation determined she was inadvertently exposed to a contaminated medical product used for trouble sleeping and jet lag.
Anisimova, who was born in New Jersey and grew up in Florida, was a semifinalist at age 17 at the 2019 French Open.
She took time away from the tour a little more than two years ago
because of burnout
. A year ago, she tried to qualify for Wimbledon, because her ranking of 189th was too low to get into the field automatically, but lost in the preliminary event.
Anisimova will break into the top 10 in the rankings for the first time next week, no matter what happens Saturday.
___
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