Iga Swiatek, a four-time French Open champion who has long regarded the lawns of the All England Club with deep suspicion, staged a Centre Court masterclass on Saturday to win the most one-sided Wimbledon final in more than a century.

The Polish eighth seed demolished Amanda Anisimova of the United States 6-0, 6-0 to win her first Wimbledon title, delivering a performance of such devastating authority and intensity that the whole thing was over in just 57 minutes.

Rarely has the long-running joke about Iga’s bakery – an allusion to the 24-year-old’s signature habit of doling out 6-0 and 6-1 sets, known in tennis parlance as bagels and breadsticks – felt more relevant, or more wildly inappropriate. For while the afternoon was first and foremost about the excellence of Swiatek, another abiding memory will be Anisimova’s tearful anguish at her inability to touch the heights she reached against Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals. 

Instead, the final act of the 23-year-old Floridian’s tournament was a mirror image of the first, Anisimova forced to taste the same bitter draught she had served Yulia Putintseva in a 6-0, 6-0 opening-round win. 

Anisimova was overwhelmed long before Swiatek drilled a final backhand beyond her to confirm a sixth grand slam title. She struggled to compose herself at the final changeover, and in the aftermath of defeat there were distant echoes of the late Jana Novotna’s tears after the 1993 final. Like the Duchess of Kent before her, the Princess of Wales offered words of consolation, telling her to keep her head high.

So she should, for Anisimova has been through much to reach this point. Her father Konstantin died suddenly before her 18th birthday in 2019, and two years ago she took a prolonged break from the game to look after her mental health. Anisimova broke down repeatedly as she looked up to her courtside box to thank her mother Olga – “the most selfless person I know” – for her support down the years. She lost the match, but will have won plenty of admirers. 

Ultimately, though, it was a day when Swiatek etched another indelible impression in the history books. She becomes the first Polish player to win a Wimbledon singles title, and the first to win a grand slam final without conceding a game since Steffi Graf eviscerated Natasha Zvereva at Roland Garros in 1988.

The last woman to claim a Centre Court whitewash in the final was Dorothea Lambert Chambers, who defeated fellow Briton Dora Boothby to win the fifth of her seven Wimbledon titles in 1911, while no player has dropped fewer than Swiatek’s 35 games en route to the title since Martina Navratilova in 1990. She is once again rubbing shoulders with giants.

The Pole’s achievement was all the more astonishing given that she had never previously advanced beyond the quarter-finals at the All England Club, and had not won a tournament since last summer’s French Open.    

“Who would have expected that?” mused Swiatek after joining Margaret Court and Monica Seles as only the third player to win each of her first six grand slam finals. 

“It’s a lot, you know, especially after a season with a lot of ups and downs and a lot of expectations from the outside that I didn’t really match. Winning Wimbledon is something that is just surreal. I feel like tennis keeps surprising me, and I keep surprising myself.”

Yet it wasn’t and wasn’t a surprise.

Notwithstanding last month’s run to the final of Bad Homburg, few would have picked out Swiatek as the winner beforehand. But she built her form steadily over the course of the fortnight, growing in stature with each round after an early wobble against Caty McNally, and carried the experience of five previous grand slam victories into the final. Her familiarity with the big occasion gave Swiatek an edge every bit as significant as her tactical nous, vastly improved serving and the peerless movement that, with the help of the experienced Belgian coach Wim Fisette, she has finally adapted to the unique demands of grass-court tennis. 

It was evident from the outset that Anisimova was a shadow of the devastating force that had toppled Sabalenka two days earlier. Faced by the might of the Belarusian world No 1’s huge serves and heavy groundstrokes, she had fought fire with fire; paralysed by nerves and still feeling the effects of that draining semi-final battle, she was barely able to muster a spark against Swiatek. 

Anisimova is blessed with one of the finest backhands in the women’s game, yet she began by ballooning a double-hander beyond the baseline and went on to miss a trio of forehands in the face of her opponent’s bold, aggressive returning. With two minutes gone, the tone was set.

Equipped with that early break and peerless when it comes to stretching a lead, Swiatek capitalised on a flurry of backhand errors from Anisimova to consolidate her advantage, before a double fault cost the American a second break. In short space, she would become the first player to concede the first set of a women’s final without winning a game since 1983, when Martina Navratilova swept through the opener against Andrea Jaeger in equally magisterial fashion.

It was a case of double jeopardy for Anisimova. On the one hand, she had to deal with her own malfunctioning service: she landed just 45% of her first serves, winning barely a quarter of those points, and fared little behind her second delivery, with a 34% success rate. On the other, she faced an opponent who was not only dominant on serve but also constantly dragging her into the corners, forcing her off balance and denying her time to land the kind of heavy baseline blows that had done for Sabalenka. 

“She came out playing very, very well, so all credit to her,” said Anisimova. “She was able to really play the game she wanted.”

The same could not be said of the misfiring American, who desperately needed to establish a foothold in the contest at the start of the second set but, repeatedly dragged deep into her forehand corner, instead committed another spate of forced and unforced errors. There would be no way back. Anisimova acknowledged she had been “a bit frozen with nerves”, but identified weariness as the greater obstacle.  

“I was nervous, but it wasn’t anything out of this world,” she said. “If anything, I was more excited to go out there and compete. I think I was just really fatigued. I could feel it also in my warm-up this morning. I had to take a break after every single rally out there in my warm-up… To be able to last two weeks in a grand slam is definitely something that you need to work a lot on.”

It is a discipline long since mastered by Swiatek. After a chequered season by her own exalted standards – however absurd such a statement might seem, given her semi-final finishes at the Australian and French Opens and at big events in Qatar, Indian Wells and Madrid – the Pole has largely flown under the radar at the All England Club. For a player who arrived at the previous three editions of the tournament as the freshly crowned Roland Garros champion, world No 1 and top seed, it has been an unaccustomed luxury – although she was not about to start ranking her grand slam achievements. 

“I think the fact it’s on grass, for sure it makes it more special and more unexpected, so for sure it feels like the emotions are bigger,” Swiatek admitted. “At Roland Garros, I know I can play well and I know I can show it every year. 

“Here, I wasn’t sure of that and I had to prove it to myself. For sure I’m not going to rank [my grand slam wins], because I have so much respect for the other tournaments. I worked really hard to win all the other slams, so there’s no point in choosing between them. 

“But this one and the US Open [in 2022] for sure feel better, because no one expected that. It wasn’t a relief, it was more just good tennis and working to make it happen.”  

Like the quality of her tennis, Swiatek’s work ethic has never been in doubt. But her Wimbledon triumph was also underpinned by hitherto largely unseen qualities: versatility, adaptability, a newfound willingness to slice and block. Patience allied with timely aggression; instinct and improvisation combined with the technical and tactical preparation on which she habitually thrives. Fun, even, for she was never a mere dirtballer or “robot”, as some have uncharitably labelled her. 

“Today I just wanted to enjoy the time that I had on Centre Court and enjoy the last hours of me playing well on grass, because who knows if it’s going to happen again,” said Swiatek. “I just focused on that and I really had fun.”

Swiatek served a one-month ban late last year after unwittingly consuming a contaminated dose of melatonin, costing her the chance to defend points in Japan and China and the loss of the No 1 ranking. The International Tennis Integrity Agency deemed her transgression to be at the lowest end of the range for “no significant fault or negligence”, but Swiatek was deeply affected by the episode and that has, perhaps, been reflected in her tennis. 

Now the smile has returned to her face. She greeted victory with unconfined joy, falling on her back in disbelief before gambolling across Centre Court, and she celebrated exuberantly on retreating to the clubhouse balcony with the Venus Rosewater dish. Above all, her game is once more evolving. There will surely be more afternoons like this.

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Had she studied the one to her right closely enough, Anisimova would have seen Simona Halep’s name under the entry for 2019. Instead, she quickly averted her gaze. Probably just as well. The American would be seeing quite enough of Halep over the 63 minutes that followed.

In truth, Anisimova did well to last even that long. A fortnight ago, she won just three games in a bruising quarter-final against Halep in Bad Homburg. Here, as she trailed by a set and 5-1 with just 49 minutes on the scoreboard, the world No 25 looked to be on course for an identical result. Then, from nowhere, a belated burst of big hitting threatened the most improbable of comebacks.

With nothing left to lose, Anisimova relaxed and began to swing freely. The errors that had blighted her play began to dry up. Drive volleys that had previously flown long found their mark. Backhands flew unchallenged into the corners. Lines were found, and even mishits somehow crept into play. The purple patch earned Anisimova 13 out of 16 points until, finally, she stood on the brink of levelling at 5-5.

At that point, 0-40 down on serve and staring at a second consecutive break against a player who defeated her at the French Open three years ago, Halep decided she had seen enough. She threw down a big first serve, drawing a weak return that she hammered away before slapping her thigh furiously. As Anisimova lapsed into error again, a combination of fine serving and trademark baseline resilience saw Halep through to a  6-2, 6-4 victory, her 12th in succession at the All England Club.

“It was not easy at all because I feel like she played without thinking that she has something to lose, so every ball was really hard hit,” said Halep. “But I refused that she’s going to come at five-all. Even if I was 0-40, I was hard a little bit on myself. I pumped myself. I served very well. I believed I could finish the match 6-4. I really believed it.”

Halep’s form has been a revelation over the past 10 days. Yet to drop a set, she has spent less than six hours on court so far. The quality of her movement and the extra power she has added to her serve neutralised Anisimova’s strengths, limiting the American’s ability to dictate from the baseline, and it was much the same case against Paula Badosa, the fourth seed, whom she dismissed in the previous round. It would surprise no one if Halep’s name made a second appearance on the wall of champions in three days’ time, although first she will need to get past Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina, who came through 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 against Ajla Tomljanovic, in Thursday’s semi-final.

It is all far removed from six months ago, when Halep was contemplating retirement as her confidence and enthusiasm for the game dwindled in the wake of a protracted injury layoff that forced her to miss Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the Olympics. The renewed joy and self-belief she has discovered since has been underpinned by her work with Patrick Mouratoglou, the French coach with whom she joined forces three months ago.

“He’s a great person,” said Halep. “We really connected from the first minute. As a coach, he talks super simple but super powerful. I take everything he tells me super good and positive, and I can actually put [it into ] practice. So it’s easy for me to get the information and to display it. 

“He’s positive. He trusted in myself that I still can be a good player. He sent me somehow this confidence, and I started to believe in myself again that I have that chance to be a good player again. He thinks that everything is possible.”

Nothing looks more possible than a second title.

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For Osaka, seeking to unlock the unsolved mystery of clay-court tennis at an event where she has yet to advance beyond the third round, a renewal of hostilities with her Australian Open conqueror would not have been uppermost on any wishlist of early tests. 

Anisimova, meanwhile, who was forced to save two match points in that third-round meeting at Melbourne Park, would likewise have hoped for a less onerous assignment than a former world No 1 and four-time slam champion with a score to settle. 

Anisimova, at 28th in the world the higher-ranked player by 10 places, later admitted to feeling “the stress and the nerves”, and it doubtless did little to allay her misgivings that, in Osaka, she faced an opponent cast in the same powerful mould.

But the American knows her way around a clay court and, while she struggled to hit through her opponent, and suffered more than a few anxious moments, she was the sharper and more consistent of the two when it mattered. In the face of some erratic play from Osaka, including no fewer than eight double faults, it was enough to give the 20-year-old a 7-5, 6-4 victory.

“It was a bit unfortunate, because I wasn’t able to play many matches leading into this tournament,” said Osaka, whose build-up to the tournament was curtailed by an Achilles injury that forced her to withdraw from the Italian Open.

“So there were probably some really bad decisions that I made on certain points, but I think overall I wasn’t too bad.

“I think the difference for me was match play, like I only played two matches on clay this year. I wish I could have played more. I stayed in Europe for longer to be able to prepare for this tournament, so it is a bit disappointing.

“But I’m happy with how my attitude was, because the last match that we played in Australia I think I was getting a bit more upset with myself, so I think I progressed in that part.”

Even before the draw, Osaka was approaching the tournament gingerly. That was partly down to her injury, and partly due to uncertainty about how she would be received after the global media maelstrom that followed her decision to shun press duties last year. So when her coach, Wim Fissette, told her she would be facing Anisimova for a second successive slam, Osaka thought he was joking.

Damp, heavy conditions ensured neither player had much cause for merriment in the early stages. After a flurry of early breaks, however, the contest settled into the kind of first-strike pattern one would expect from two of the most unflinching shot-makers in the women’s game. After 10 games, there was nothing to separate the pair. 

Then came a hint of fallibility from Anisimova, who took a high ball that was perhaps flying long and volleyed it into the bottom of the net, to her evident dismay. She has enjoyed a productive few weeks on the red dirt, however, reaching the last four in Charleston and successive quarter-finals in Madrid and Rome, and with the rhythm of regular competition comes an ability to roll with the punches. Instead it was Osaka, lacking match sharpness, who blinked first, a double fault handing Anisimova a crucial break. The American served out the set to love. 

There were would be more wobbly moments for the American, not least when she made errors off either wing to spurn her first two match points as she served at 40-0 in the final game. But she had stuck doggedly to her front-foot game plan throughout, continuing to blast away even as Osaka tried to tailor her play to the conditions with greater margin and spin, and she was not about to back off now. Once again showing the courage of her convictions, she rifled a backhand winner down the line to seal victory.

“When you see Naomi Osaka in the first round, you don’t think it’s going to be easy,” said Anisimova, who will face Donna Vekic of Croatia in the next round. “The conditions were tough today, because of the rain it was very heavy. So I was kind of expecting her to play that way. But I just was trying to stay aggressive and keep going for my flat shots, because that’s what I thought would help me get the win.”

Barbora Krejcikova, the Czech defending champion, swiftly followed Osaka out of the tournament, defeated 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 by Diane Parry of France. Krejcikova, the second seed, had not played since February after suffering an elbow injury. Despite that lengthy layoff, she showed no initial signs of rust, reeling off eight of the first nine games to lead by a set and a break. 

Parry, a gifted 19-year-old ranked 97th in the world, had merely been caught in the headlights. As she belatedly acclimatised to the occasion, the flowing one-handed backhand that had flown long in the early stages began to land with unerring regularity. At the same time, Krejcikova’s game began to misfire.

As the momentum shifted towards Parry, so the crowd began to turn on the Czech, who ill-advisedly left the court for a lengthy change of attire at the end of the second set and was roundly jeered on her return. Krejcikova nonetheless claimed an early break in the decider, but a run of eight successive points put Parry back on level terms, and the former junior world No 1 was the steadier down the home stretch.

“I expected it was going to be difficult, and it was,” said Krejcikova. “I had to start somewhere, so it’s a pity that it had to be here and I didn’t have any other matches.

“I hit the wall. I just collapsed physically. It was tough, because I didn’t play matches. Usually matches are different than practices, and I tried to prepare the best way I could. For sure, I didn’t want to miss this one.”

While Krejcikova, elbow allowing, will now seek to get more matches under her belt in preparation for the grass-court season, Osaka said she may skip Wimbledon following the WTA’s decision to strip the tournament of ranking points.

“The decision is kind of affecting my mentality going into grass,” said Osaka of the WTA’s response to the ban imposed on Russian and Belarusian players by the All England Club following the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine. 

“I’m not 100% sure if I’m going to go there. I would love to go just to get some experience on the grass courts, but like at the same time, for me, it’s kind of like – I don’t want to say pointless, no pun intended – but I’m the type of player that gets motivated by seeing my ranking go, stuff like that. I think the intention was really good, but the execution is kind of all over the place.”

Execution was not a problem for Iga Swiatek, the top seed and red-hot favourite for the title, who claimed her 29th win in a row with a 6-2, 6-0 mauling of Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine. But Emma Raducanu, the 12th seed, was made to work hard by Czech qualifier Linda Noskova, battling back from a set down to subdue the 17-year-old girls’ champion 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 6-1 in a battle spanning more than two and a half hours.

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What followed was the perfect demonstration of why many feel she is the player most likely to raise the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup come Saturday evening, ending Australia’s 44-year wait for a homegrown champion.

First there was a sumptuous rolled forehand return that sent Anisimova scrambling fruitlessly beyond the doubles alley. Then a beautiful change of pace and trajectory, as a skidding crosscourt slice was followed by a lofted topspin forehand that drew an error from the American as she tried in vain to alter the geometry of the rally. Two further backhand errors followed, one off another fizzing slice, the other from a three-quarter length forehand loaded with topspin. In the previous round against Naomi Osaka, Anisimova had thrived on the defending champion’s pace and rhythm. Against Barty, she barely got to hit the same ball twice. She would win only two more games.

“[The break of serve] didn’t bother me too much,” said Barty after a 6-4, 6-3 victory that moves her into a quarter-final against another American, the 21st seed Jessica Pegula, who beat fifth seed Maria Sakkari 7-6 (7-0), 6-3. 

“Honestly, I’m not counting how many games I hold in a row or not. The fact I was able to reset, break straight back, was really important, just to be able to reset myself, go again and continue to do the right things. 

“In that game Amanda saw a few second serves that she was able to punish, and she also had some really good returns off first serves. You tip your hat and you say, ‘Too good’ to your opponent when they come up with returns from the baseline. You move on pretty quickly and continue to try and do the right things. It’s a part of my game that I continue to work on.”

Barty, the top seed, has yet to drop a set at Melbourne Park as she aims to become the first Australian woman to lift the title since Chris O’Neil in 1978. 

Barbora Krejcikova, the Czech fourth seed, remains on course for a projected semi-final meeting with Barty after coming through 6-2, 6-2 against two-time champion Victoria Azarenka, who was hampered by a neck injury.

Krejcikova, the French Open champion, will face Madison Keys in the last eight after the American world no 51 stunned Paula Badosa, the eighth seed, 6-3, 6-1 to reach the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park for the third time.

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That argument was quickly rendered redundant following Barty’s imperious return to the tour, which was closely followed by the mental health struggles that led Osaka to miss several months of the season, but a projected fourth-round meeting between the Australian Open title favourites was nonetheless eagerly anticipated.

Sometimes, however, plans change. Barty upheld her side of the deal by brushing aside Italy’s Camila Giorgi in straight sets. But Osaka, the defending champion, was dethroned 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10-5) by the unseeded American Amanda Anisimova, who fought back from two match points down to deny the event’s beleaguered organisers the marquee weekend showdown they craved.

While the two-time champion’s disappointment was evident, she expressed pride about both her performance and the mental turnaround she has achieved since her tearful defeat to Leylah Fernandez at the US Open, following which she announced she would take an indefinite break from the game.

“I fought for every point and I can’t be sad about that,” said Osaka, whose appetite for the fray was as evident in her repeated fist pumps and self-exhortations as it was in her ferocious groundstrokes and serves.

“I’m not God. I can’t win every match. So I just have to take that into account and know that it would be nice to win the tournament, but that’s really special. I can’t think of myself trying to win the grand slam at the start of the year every time.  

“For me, I feel like I grew a lot in this match. The last match that I played in New York, I think I had a completely different attitude. So I’m really happy – of course I lost, but I’m happy with how it went.”

Osaka, who marked her return to the sport with a semi-final run at the Melbourne Summer Set, said she would probably shun social media for a while. Yet she was full of praise for her young opponent – “I’m excited to see where her game takes her” – and had sufficient perspective to see the result not simply as a personal setback but also as a signpost for the future of the game.

“To me, it’s exciting,” said Osaka. “Not the loss itself, but the person I lost to, because it’s showing the growth of tennis. I feel like now I’m in this position where if I lose to someone, it might make a headline, but I also think it kind of grows more superstars, and I feel like that’s good for the game.”

Anisimova, who slowly reeled in Osaka with her low, bludgeoning groundstrokes, has form for an upset that predates her straight-sets win over Olympic champion Belinda Bencic in the previous round. Two and a half years ago, when she was just 17, the American stunned defending champion Simona Halep at Roland Garros to become the youngest semi-finalist in Paris for 13 years.

Just as her stock was rising, however, her world was split asunder by the sudden death of her father, Konstantin. It has been a long road back from that personal nadir but, after winning the second title of her career in Melbourne 12 days ago, she is once again posting the results of which she is capable. 

“Last year was a huge struggle for me,” said Anisimova, 20, who is now ranked 60th after reaching a career high of 21st a little over two years ago. “I really wanted to be having these moments again.

“[Osaka] has a really big game, so I knew that I had to step it up and try to be as aggressive as I could. I don’t know if I did that so well today, because in most of the moments I feel like she was more aggressive. I think my serve is what really helped me today.”

In Barty, Anisimova will face familiar opposition. It was the Queenslander who eventually ended her breakthrough run at the French Open, where she stood within three games of the final at a set and 3-0 up. For Barty, who went on to win the match and the title, it was a pivotal victory.

“I learned a lot from that moment,” Barty recalled following her 6-2, 6-3 win over Giorgi. “That was a turning point in my career, and you have to be able to take learnings from those moments, as hard as they are sometimes. 

“I was able to navigate and find a way through, which at that point in my life, in my career, was a massive turning point. It feels like it’s a lifetime ago, but some of those memories are still really vivid. Without a doubt we will take that and use that experience, use those feelings and those emotions as best we can come Sunday.”

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