Iga Swiatek matches Wimbledon history with incredible final victory

Amanda Anisimova wiped a palm damp with the sweat of nerves on her tennis skirt, flopped over a 87mph first serve then ballooned a backhand long - and so began the most nightmarish display in a Wimbledon final for 114 years.

Iga Swiatek won 6-0, 6-0 in 57 minutes, a match that went by in a flash but will linger in the memory and in the record books.

The aftermath will live on, too, as Anisimova left the court and returned wiping away tears. In her speech she talked with courage, breaking down again when thanking her mother, watching on from behind dark glasses.

Not since Jana Novotna wept on the shoulder of Duchess of Kent in 1983 has the All England Club witnessed such naked devastation.

Like Novotna, the 23-year-old American received royal comfort, words of encouragement from the Princess of Wales, and she must hope her Wimbledon story will have as happy an ending. Novotna returned from that collapse against Steffi Graff to win the title in 1998.

Graff’s name came up again as the history books were scoured. The only other 6-0, 6-0 defeat in a final at Wimbledon came in 1911, when Dora Boothby lost to Dorothea Lambert Chambers, but the last in a Grand Slam was in 1988 when Natasha Zvereva was destroyed at the French Open by Steffi Graff.

Fraulein Forehand was a ruthless competitor and Swiatek is her heir in that regard: the 24-year-old Pole was utterly merciless in ensuring humiliation was added to defeat.

It would be trite to call this the worst day of Anisimova’s life. Her father Konstantin died in 2019 and in 2023 she stepped away from the day for seven months to protect her mental health. She is better placed than most to draw perspective; better shielded by a carapace of resilience.

But her worst day on a tennis court? Without a doubt. It was like a tennis player’s anxiety dream in which they find themselves on a grand stage and suddenly forget how to play the game which has been ingrained since childhood.

Anisimova hit eight double faults and made 28 unforced errors. She shanked balls long and wide not by inches but by feet. Her body seemed so paralysed she could barely move. How to explain such a performance, from one of the world’s finest ball-strikers who took out world No1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals?

In hindsight, that three-set defeat of Sabalenka in the raging heat was a Pyrrhic victory. Anisimova looked utterly drained of energy.

Then there was the occasion. This was a first Wimbledon final for both women but if that suggests a measure of equality that is entirely false. Swiatek had made five Grand Slam finals before and won the lot; Anisimova was making her first appearance on this stage - and the stage fright was appalling.

But for such an extraordinary scoreline to occur there must be a perfect storm of circumstances, and across the net from Anisimova was the worst possible opponent she could have faced in her plight.

Swiatek’s idol is Rafael Nadal and she lives by the Spaniard’s insistence on playing every point as if it were his last. She took that to an extreme here, still fist pumping away at 6-0, 5-0.

Before a 12-month slump which she has broken with this title, Swiatek doled out so many bagels and breadsticks (a 6-1 set) that there developed an internet gag about ‘Iga’s bakery’.

The bakery has been boarded up since last year’s French Open but is well and truly open for business again. Taking in her 6-2, 6-0 semi-final win over Belinda Benic, Swiatek won the last 20 games of this tournament in a row, and no player in the Open Era has conceded fewer games in their last two matches of a Slam.

We did not know it at the time but the third game of the match was Anisimova’s last chance to avoid wipeout. She led by 40-15 and had two further game points. Once that had slipped away the match was effectively over.

Anisimova shipped another break at the start of the second set, slashing a forehand wide with a scream of dismay.

From there it was only a case of whether Anisimova would win a game and it never looked likely.

Swiatek fell to the ground in her moment of victory then jumped for joy around the court. Rarely can the triumph and disaster of sport have been illustrated with such piercing clarity.