By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@Wimbledon.
Iga Swiatek won her first Wimbledon title and sixth major championship, overwhelming American Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 on Saturday in the first women’s final at the tournament.
It is only the second time in Wimbledon’s history that a women’s final has ended with the same scoreline when Dorothea Lambert Chambers beat Dora Boothby in 1911, while the only other instance at a Grand Slam came in the French Open in 1988 when Steffi Graf beat Natasha Zvereva.
The Pole is one of the best front runners the sport has seen and she did not allow Anisimova any chance to settle as the groans of the crowd grew ever more audible.
The breezy conditions did not help, and it took Swiatek just 25 minutes to wrap up the first set, with Anisimova winning only nine points.
The American, who stepped away from tennis for eight months in 2023 for mental health reasons, twice screamed in frustration, and probably rising panic, after errors in the opening game of the second set.
The eight former champions sat in the Royal Box would have empathised with Anisimova’s predicament but she could find no way of getting any kind of foothold in the match.
Every half chance was either snuffed out by Swiatek or crushed by another wild mistake – she made 28 unforced errors in the 12 games – and a final Swiatek winner put her out of her misery.
“Honestly, I didn’t even dream [of this], because for me, it was just, like, way too far, you know?” Swiatek said during the on-court ceremony as the Princess of Wales presented the trophies. “I feel like I’m already an experienced player after winning the Slams before, but I never really expected this one.
“I want to thank my team — they believed in me more than I did.”
Swiatek never had been past the quarterfinals of the All England Club and her only other final on the slick surface came when she was the runner-up at a tuneup 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.
Meanwhile Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool have become the first all-British pair to win the Wimbledon men’s doubles title since 1936.