Iga Swiatek doesn't lose a single game vs. Amanda Anisimova in winning her 1st Wimbledon title
Not only is Swiatek now the champion of the All England Club, she did it with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Amanda Anisimova on Saturday in the first women's final at the tournament in 114 years in which one player failed to claim a single game.
'It seems super surreal,' said Swiatek, a 24-year-old from Poland who is now 6-0 in major title matches.
That's also a good way to describe the way things unfolded at a sunny, breezy Centre Court against the 13th-seeded Anisimova, a 23-year-old American who was participating in her first Slam final.
With Kate, the Princess of Wales, sitting in the Royal Box and on hand to present the trophies, the whole thing took just 57 minutes. The previous 6-0, 6-0 Wimbledon women's final was all the way back in 1911.
'Honestly, I didn't even dream (of this) because for me, it was just, like, way too far, you know?' Swiatek said. 'I feel like I'm already an experienced player after winning the Slams before, but I never really expected this one.'
She won 55 of the 79 points despite needing to produce merely 10 winners. Anisimova was shaky from the start and made 28 unforced errors.
'You're such an incredible player. It obviously showed today,' Anisimova told Swiatek. 'You've been such an inspiration to me. Just an unbelievable athlete.'
Swiatek already owned four titles on the French Open's red clay and one on the U.S. Open's hard courts, but this is the first of her professional career at any grass-court tournament. And it ended a long-for-her drought: Swiatek last won a trophy anywhere more than a year ago, at Roland-Garros in June 2024.
Swiatek is the eighth consecutive first-time women's champion at Wimbledon, but this stands out because of how stunningly dominant it was.
Anisimova won her first-round match less than two weeks ago by a 6-0, 6-0 score and eliminated No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals Thursday, but she never looked like the same player this time. Not at all.
'No matter what happened today,' Swiatek told Anisimova, 'you should be proud of the work you're doing.'
When it was over, while Swiatek climbed into the stands to celebrate with her team, Anisimova sat on the sideline in tears.
Swiatek never had been past the quarterfinals at the All England Club, and her only other final on the slick surface came when she was the runner-up at a tune-up event in Germany right before Wimbledon began.
Swiatek spent most of 2022, 2023 and 2024 at No. 1 in the WTA rankings but was seeded No. 8 at Wimbledon. 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 17 at the 2019 French Open. Her father died soon after that. On Saturday, Anisimova's mother flew to England, a rare instance of her attending one of her daughter's matches.
'My mom is the most selfless person I know, and she's done everything to get me to this point in my life,' Anisimova said through tears, then spoke to her mother directly, saying: 'Thank you for being here and breaking the superstition of flying in.'
And then, with a chuckle, Anisimova added: 'It's definitely not why I lost today.'
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 she lost in the preliminary event.
Now she'll break into the top 10 in the rankings for the first time.
'It's been an incredible fortnight for me. Even though I ran out of gas a bit today, and I wish that I could put on a better performance for all of you,' Anisimova told the crowd, 'you guys have still been there for me and lifted me up today.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wimbledon 2025: Jannik Sinner gets revenge with final win to deny Carlos Alcaraz third straight title
Jannik Sinner beat Carlos Alcaraz in four sets at Wimbledon and 1106 days later did it all over again. Come the end of the world number one's career, the first of those victories might not even merit a passing mention. It was a relatively low-key affair, Sinner getting the better of Alcaraz in the last-16 in 2022 to reach a first quarter-final on the SW19 courts. Advertisement Three years later, and with Alcaraz not having tasted defeat at Wimbledon since, Sinner delivered on the biggest stage of them all. He came from a set behind to dethrone the Spaniard on Centre Court in a 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 victory. Alcaraz was on a 20-match unbeaten Wimbledon run, eyeing a third straight title on Centre Court and with the added mental edge of five consecutive wins over Sinner. He had won all five of his previous Grand Slam finals. There was also the lingering memory of the French Open final and that remarkable evening five weeks ago. Sinner had three championship points against Alcaraz in Paris, let them slip and fell to an agonising defeat. Sinner, though, secured revenge at the first opportunity. He lost the first set from 4-2 up but responded superbly and on this occasion motored over the finish line for a fourth Grand Slam title and his first away from the hard courts. Had he won at Roland Garros, Sinner would now be the current champion of all four majors. "We were talking before the match that we would never thought we would be in this position when I was young,' Sinner said. Advertisement 'This was only a dream, the dream of the dream because it was so far away from where I'm from. I'm just living my dream." The Italian cannot rival Alcaraz for popularity, his three-month doping ban earlier this year conveniently timed between the Grand Slams raising plenty of questions. His ruthless demeanour also plays a part, in stark contrast to the expressive Spaniard, but this was an evening for Sinner to land the latest blow in a rivalry that is set to shape the next decade of the sport. He took full advantage of his fortune earlier in the tournament. Sinner was two sets down to Grigor Dimitrov in the last-16 and well on his way to defeat, only for the Bulgarian to tear a pectoral muscle when serving and be forced to retired. Alcaraz, meanwhile, reached this final despite being below his best for significant periods of the past fortnight. He lost at least one set in five of his seven matches and those drops in level were always likely to be punished against Sinner. Advertisement The Spaniard showed both sides to his game in the first set, a loose couple of minutes seeing him give up a break and trail 4-2 before an emphatic response followed. The intensity was raised, the grunts increased with every swing of the forehand, and Alcaraz rattled off four games in a row. The set was sealed in stunning fashion, Sinner seemingly saving set point with a huge forehand down the line but Alcaraz, almost in the splits, somehow flicked it back over. Sinner responded immediately, breaking in the opening game of the second set. He was helped by a double fault from Alcaraz, of which there were seven in the match. The Italian then saved a break point to hold and lead 2-0, a big shout of 'let's go' as animated as he had been all tournament. Jannik Sinner claimed his first Wimbledon title with a four-set win over Carlos Alcaraz (AFP via Getty Images) Holds were exchanged and Sinner levelled the match with a remarkable game, Alcaraz left helpless in the face of a flurry of stunning winners. Advertisement After an hour-and-a-half warm-up, it was a best-of-three sets match for the Wimbledon title. Every Alcaraz service game felt like a battle, the first of the set bringing two unconverted break points for Sinner and the next two battling Alcaraz holds from 30-30. The demeanour of both felt somewhat unexpected. Sinner, usually so calm, was animated on big points and even provided some showboating, hitting one half-volley between his legs at the net. Alcaraz, meanwhile, showed little sign of his usual flamboyance, his mood relatively reserved and at times even flat. Sinner picked his moment to break at the perfect time, putting away a volley with Alcaraz in a heap behind the baseline to lead 5-4, and he wrapped up the set. Two brilliant backhand winners gave Sinner the break early in the fourth. Alcaraz has been in worse positions than this against Sinner and recovered but there was little outward show of belief. Advertisement The Centre Court crowd tried to play their part, Sinner's attempts to serve for the match at 5-4 delayed by a deafening chorus of 'Carlos, Carlos, Carlos'. As in Paris, three championship points came. It had been two years, five matches and 18 sets since his last win over Alcaraz. One final first serve put those demons to rest.
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wimbledon 2025: Iga Swiatek wins maiden Wimbledon title as Amanda Anisimova suffers nightmare day
It could not have been much more than 30 metres' distance between them, but they felt worlds apart. While Iga Swiatek was clambering up the rows of seats towards her box to celebrate her maiden Wimbledon title, Amanda Anisimova sat slumped in her chair, a towel over her face, desperate for the pristine green of Centre Court to just swallow her up after suffering the scarring ignominy of losing a Grand Slam final 6-0 6-0. Advertisement Right from the off, when she went 0-40 down and was broken on serve in the very first service game, the atmosphere was decidedly eery. When would she overcome her stage fright and land a blow on Swiatek? The answer never came. This will always be remembered as the Wimbledon final over in 57 minutes. The galling nature of Anisimova's defeat felt it might threaten how we come to remember Swiatek's crowning moment. But the American battled through the tears in her on-court loser's speech to praise the champion, to force a smile, even to crack a couple of jokes. Swiatek, she rightly said, was a deserving champion. The 2018 junior Wimbledon champion has levelled up. She was powerful, precise, marvellous throughout. The ruthless manner of her victory may have left some on Centre Court feeling cheated of their pricey tickets but was just a measure of her exceptional level all fortnight. She can thank her opponent for having knocked out the world No1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-final, but there were no more gimmes beyond. She had dropped just one set all tournament, winning her semi-final 6-2 6-0 before becoming only the second player ever to win a women's Grand Slam final with a double bagel, after Steffi Graf at the 1988 French Open. This was a first Wimbledon final for both, and Swiatek is still yet to lose a Grand Slam final, claiming her sixth. Anisimova, a Roland-Garros semi-finalist at just 17 years old in 2019, was powerless to quell her own nerves in her first Grand Slam final. She froze, eternally hamstrung, unable to respond to the crowd's regular best efforts to boost her into action. Advertisement The action was almost entirely Swiatek's. Forehand winners slapped into the corner, 119mph aces, drop shots Anisimova could only stare at. Her opponent all too often fired beyond the baseline when she was not hitting double faults or merely reacting with resignation to Swiatek's brilliance. Anisimova won just 26 per cent of points off her first serve and put only 45 per cent of her first serves in — no recipe for success in any match, let alone the final of Wimbledon. How long had it been since Swiatek, the first-ever Polish Wimbledon singles champion, first dreamed of lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish on Centre Court? 'Honestly, I didn't even dream,' she laughed afterwards. 'For me, it was way too far. I want to thank my team, because I feel they believed in me more than I did.' A fortnight of peerless tennis on a surface previously seen as her weakness has delivered the 24-year-old the greatest moment of her career so far. Anisimova, 23 and born only three months after Swiatek, first faced the Pole nine years ago in a Junior Fed Cup match in Hungary that Swiatek won 6-4 6-2. Their next meeting and first at professional level proved nothing short of a nightmare for her. Advertisement The 13th seed was not only shackled by the grand occasion and by the relentless Swiatek but also mired by her own negative body language. The American glared at the turf, smacked her racquet against her thigh, or threw her head to the heavens as the games kept passing her by. Plenty found it hard to watch. Having lost the first set without claiming a single game and when 0-30 down on serve in the first game of the second, she was bouncing a ball down with her racquet when it landed on her shoe and rolled away. Here, in microcosm, was her whole helpless experience, the final and the day all just getting further and further away from her. Just as for her conqueror, though, this has been an excellent fortnight. Mustering the words when surely none felt like coming, she acknowledged her mother for flying in to watch her, and then thanked the crowd. 'Even though I ran out of gas today, you guys have still lifted me up. 'I know I didn't have enough today, but I always believe in myself and hope to be back here someday.' There's a very decent chance she will. Next week, she will break into the world's top-10 for the very first time. Advertisement Swiatek has been there for some time, though this has been an admittedly testing year for the former world No1, missing a month and three tournaments in late 2024 after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine and having to work her way back to the summit. In May, she was left devastated by failing to win a fourth successive French Open title. But, in the long-run, a blessing in disguise? She regrouped immediately, switching with laser focus to the grass-court season. She has swatted aside everyone in her path — Anisimova, however cruel this was, just the latest. Swiatek is, without doubt, the greatest player of her generation, this her sixth Grand Slam title and with so many more still to be claimed. In her first Wimbledon final, she was particularly brutal. A demolition job in less than an hour. In no time, a win for all time.
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek celebrate first Wimbledon wins with Champions' Dinner dance
Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek celebrated their respective first Wimbledon triumphs at the traditional glitzy Champions' Dinner on Sunday night. Women's world No3 Swiatek crowned her best-ever run on grass with a maiden SW19 victory on Saturday, afternoon lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish after thrashing American 13th seed Amanda Anisimova 6-0 6-0 in less than an hour in her first final on Centre Court. Advertisement Never before in the modern Open Era of tennis had a player produced a ruthless double bagel to win the women's Wimbledon singles final, with Dorothea Lambert Chambers the last do to it all the way back in 1911 against Dora Boothby. It was a sixth Grand Slam success in total so far for the first Polish Wimbledon winner, who now just needs to win the Australian Open to complete the full set of major championships, having won four French Open titles since 2020 as the 'Queen of Clay' in addition to the 2022 US Open. That dominant victory was followed up 24 hours later by reigning men's world No1 Sinner, who responded to his agonising five-set defeat by Carlos Alcaraz in the Roland Garros showpiece last month by toppling the back-to-back defending Wimbledon champion 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 in the latest instalment of their growing rivalry. Advertisement The Italian is now a four-time Grand Slam winner, having also won the Australian Open in back-to-back years in addition to last year's US Open. As is long-standing Wimbledon tradition, respective singles winners Sinner and Swiatek later got dressed up on Sunday night for the glamourous annual Champions' Dinner, which was held at the luxury Raffles London at The OWO, located in the heart of Whitehall. First-time winners: Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek pose with their trophies at the Wimbledon Champions' Dinner (AELTC via Getty Images) The duo again posed with their trophies that were initially presented on court over the weekend by The Princess of Wales, also honouring custom by sharing a short dance together, the footage of which has since been posted on social media by the official Wimbledon accounts. Advertisement Sinner and Swiatek danced together for around 20 seconds to the tune of Portugal. The Man's 2017 hit 'Feel It Still', with the host for the evening joking beforehand that they would be awarded a 10 out of 10 regardless if Annabel Croft was in attendance with Strictly Come Dancing scorecards. After the dance, she joked: 'We said 10 out of 10, I think everyone in this room is drunk enough that it doesn't even matter. It's all good, enjoy your champagne and the rest of the night. Congratulations.' On the prospect of performing the traditional Champions' Dinner dance, Sinner had said with a smile after winning Wimbledon: 'That's a problem. I'm not really good at dancing. But come on… I can handle it.'
