Latest news with #All England Club
The Independent
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Kate, Princess of Wales, is scheduled to present the Wimbledon trophies to Alcaraz and Sinner
Kate, the Princess of Wales, was scheduled to return to Wimbledon on Sunday to watch the men's final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner and present the trophies afterward. Kate, the wife of Prince William, is the patron of the All England Club and usually attends the women's and men's singles finals. On Saturday, she gave champion Iga Swiatek her prize after a 6-0, 6-0 victory in the final and offered consoling words to runner-up Amanda Anisimova. Last year, while recovering from cancer, the princess did not attend the women's final but was on hand for Alcaraz's win against Novak Djokovic at the All England Club. She has been gradually returning to public duties and recently welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron during a state visit to Britain. ___ AP tennis:
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Sport
- Washington Post
American Amanda Anisimova faces Poland's Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon women's final
LONDON — Amanda Anisimova and Iga Swiatek both will be aiming to win Wimbledon for the first time when they meet in the 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.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Wimbledon runs out of Evian! Mineral water supplies go dry at SW19 and reusable bottles are taken off the shelves as fans struggle in the heat
Wimbledon has run out of Evian water supplies amid the blistering weather at the Championships, forcing organisers to shut down the tournament's branded refill stations. With temperatures soaring above 30°C and fans fainting in the stands, the All England Club has quietly pulled the plug on its mineral water supply, despite Evian being its headline sponsor. Insiders said that the tournament had used 50 per cent of their supplies on the opening day of the Championships because the demand had 'been unprecedented' due to record temperatures. They said Evian had to balance the need to supply the players' side – where 'demand had also been huge' - as well as the spectators' side. The new reusable bottles have now been switched over to the red sport cap bottles in all the stores. 'After Day One they got through almost half of their reserves. It meant they closed down eight stations,' an insider told the Mail. 'Evian is apparently blaming Wimbledon – claiming supply was determined by the usage data obtained from AELTC from last year. 'That would have been fine but the difference this year has been the weather is extremely hot and everyone's been gasping for water.' The shortage has also seen the sudden disappearance of the £5 Evian refillable bottles from shelves across the grounds. The All England Club is thought to have closed eight of the Evian refill points on Wednesday after supplies completely dried up. As a result, they were forced to also remove the £5 Evian reusable bottles - created specifically for the 2025 Championships – and replace them with regular Evian bottles. Tennis fans had been encouraged to purchase the new bottles and use the free refill points to help reduce plastic waste during the two-week event. But organisers had not expected the huge demand as temperatures have soared over 33c. It comes after play on Centre Court matches has been disrupted several times by heat-stricken fans needing medical attention.
The Independent
5 days ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Amanda Anisimova or Iga Swiatek will be Wimbledon's eighth consecutive first-time women's champion
Either Amanda Anisimova or Iga Swiatek will leave the All England Club 's grass courts as Wimbledon 's eighth consecutive first-time women's champion. Why has there been such a revolving door? Chris Evert has some thoughts about various elements that, as she put it ahead of Saturday's final, 'make it difficult to feel completely secure and confident on this elusive surface.' For one, there's the amount of talent in the game — 'deeper now than ever,' said Evert, a Hall of Famer who won three of her 18 Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in the 1970s and 1980s and was the runner-up six times during an era when Martina Navratilova won a record nine singles championships there. Plus, Evert noted, there's a short turnaround after the red clay of the French Open, leaving only two to three weeks to practice and prepare for what she called a 'polar opposite' surface. Another contributing factor are the uneven bounces and other adjustments required on grass. And with no completely dominant figure since Serena Williams retired after the 2022 U.S. Open, there is more room for new faces such as the 13th-seeded Anisimova, a 23-year-old American who will be participating in her first major final against Swiatek, a former No. 1 who won four trophies at Roland-Garros and one at the U.S. Open but hadn't been past the quarterfinals at Wimbledon until now. 'I never even dreamt that it's going to be possible for me to play in the final,' said Swiatek, a 24-year-old from Poland who hadn't been in a title match as a professional at any grass-court tournament until three weeks ago, when she was the runner-up at Bad Homburg, Germany. 'I thought I experienced everything on the court, ' Swiatek said. 'But I didn't experience playing well on grass.' Sure did Thursday during her 6-2, 6-0 win against Belinda Bencic in the semifinals. 'Maybe I would have had to play my absolutely best tennis of my life and risk every shot to beat her today, the way she played,' Bencic said. Like Swiatek, Anisimova also was a recent runner-up on the surface, reaching the final at Queen's Club last month. Her powerful, flat strokes are a natural fit for the turf, and she showed just how good she can be on the stuff during a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 victory against No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on Thursday. 'I have to say,' Sabalenka said, 'that she was more brave.' A sign of Anisimova's skill on grass came three years ago, when she reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. But she hadn't played at the event again until now, because she sat out the tournament during a mental health break to deal with burnout in 2023, then was ranked too low to get in automatically a year ago and lost during the qualifying rounds. 'A lot of people told me that you would never make it to the top again if you take so much time away from the game. That was a little hard to digest, because I did want to come back and still achieve a lot and win a Grand Slam one day,' Anisimova said, adding that she is pleased to be 'able to prove that you can get back to the top if you prioritize yourself.' Since Williams won her seventh and last Wimbledon championship in 2016 — a repeat performance from a year prior — every woman to hold the trophy was doing so for the first time. There was Garbiñe Muguruza in 2017, Angelique Kerber in 2018, Simona Halep in 2019 and Ash Barty in 2021 — all of whom are now retired — followed by Elena Rybakina in 2022, Marketa Vondrousova in 2023 and Barbora Krejcikova in 2024 (the tournament was canceled in 2020 because of COVID-19). Contrast that sort of variety to the much smaller circle of men to win Wimbledon lately: Since 2003, just five have done it — Roger Federer with eight, Novak Djokovic with seven, and Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Carlos Alcaraz with a pair apiece. ___ ___
The Independent
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Iga Swiatek owns 5 Grand Slam titles and finally can try to add to that at Wimbledon
More comfortable on grass courts than ever, Iga Swiatek played as well as she ever has on the slick surface — well, better than ever, actually — to reach her first Wimbledon final by defeating Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-0 at Centre Court on Thursday. Swiatek will face Amanda Anisimova for the trophy on Saturday. Whoever wins will be the eighth consecutive first-time women's champion at the All England Club. 'I never even dreamt that it's going to be possible for me to play in the final,' said Swiatek, who has won five Grand Slam titles elsewhere and spent most of 2022, 2023 and 2024 at No. 1 in the WTA rankings. Good as she is on clay courts, especially, and hard courts, too, Swiatek only once had been as far as the quarterfinals at Wimbledon until this week. 'I'm just super excited and just proud of myself,' the 24-year-old from Poland said after wrapping up the victory over Bencic in just 71 minutes. 'Tennis keeps surprising me. I thought I lived through everything, even though I'm young. I thought I experienced everything on the court. But I didn't experience playing well on grass. That's the first time.' There were signs of a breakthrough right before Wimbledon: She made her first career final on grass in a tournament at Bad Homburg, Germany — losing to Jessica Pegula, then crying on court — and that also happened to be her first final at any event in more than a year. The last 12 months also including a doping case in which Swiatek wound up with a month ban after it was determined she was exposed to a contaminated medical product used for trouble sleeping and jet lag. Now she is one win away from ending her overall championship drought and adding to the Grand Slam hardware she already has earned: four titles at the French Open and one at the U.S. Open. She is 5-0 in major finals, while Anisimova, a 23-year-old from the United States, will be making her debut in that round at a major on Saturday. They played each other as juniors when they were teens but never have met as professionals. 'She can play amazing tennis and she loves fast surfaces, because she has a flat game,' Swiatek said about Anisimova. 'So you have to be ready for fast shots, for her being proactive. But I'm just going to kind of focus on myself.' So what is the secret to Swiatek's grass prowess lately? 'I improved my movement and I am serving really well and I feel really confident, so I'm just going for it,' said Swiatek, who listened to AC/DC, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Guns N' Roses before her semifinal. 'For sure, it's working.' ___
