A Wimbledon whitewash

That was excruciating. Poor Amanda Anisimova was thrashed 6-0, 6-0 by Iga Swiatek in the women’s Wimbledon singles final. You could feel the crowd willing her to get a game, but you could also sense that there wasn’t a great deal of conviction.

With her shallow breathing and tortured expression, Anisimova appeared to be frozen in fear. Semi-finals can be intimidating, but the finals of a Grand Slam are doubly so, especially at Wimbledon. The grandeur of the occasion on Centre Court, along with the accompanying formality, has often proved too much for first-time Slam finalists.

When a player is thrashed in this manner in earlier rounds, they can pack their bags and run for the exit. In the final, that’s not possible, although Anisimova did disappear for a moment to try and compose herself. Imagine losing in this manner and then having to make a runner-up speech and pose for pictures. She finally broke down in tears during her on-court interview.

The last time a player was beaten 6-0, 6-0 in a Grand Slam final was back in 1988 when Steffi Graf annihilated Natasha Zvereva at Roland Garros in the French Open. How does a player come back from that? It must surely haunt them for years.

Swiatek was utterly ruthless. One might ask why she didn’t let her opponent win a game, but tennis matches don’t work like that. They are not just about one’s ability, but also about confidence. Let your opponent win a game out of sheer pity, and it gives them hope. Before you know it, they can start catching up, and you become the one whose nerves start to shred.

Swiatek is not known as a grass court player, so you could say this was a surprise. But with the soaring temperatures at this year’s Wimbledon, the usually slick grass baked and ended up more like a hard court, which absolutely suited the Polish woman’s game.

Swiatek takes short, compact backswings, which help with control. Normally, those short backswings come at a cost of power, except she takes the ball on the rise, which utilises the opponent’s force. Conversely, Anisimova has a fairly wristy, loose swing, which might create more power, but also more margin for error, and she splayed her shots wide, over and over again. She also hits flat groundstrokes, which can easily float long.

The match was played in over 30 degrees. It’s been the hottest Wimbledon in memory, where multiple spectators have buckled in the heat and needed medical attention. Wimbledon is primarily an outdoor tournament, but beyond a certain temperature, the roof should surely be closed, and not just over the Royal Box. It would also offer the players more protection.

This marks the first time a Polish player has won a Grand Slam. Swiatek is the most famous sportsperson in her homeland. Unlike so many tennis stars who flee to the likes of Monaco to avoid taxes in their own countries, she chooses residency in her home country, and is much appreciated for that by fellow Poles. She’s also admired for her stance against Russia, frequently sporting a ribbon with the colours of the Ukrainian flag on her hat. And she won’t accept sponsorship money from a company where she doesn’t approve of their values.

However, she says she can’t go to a restaurant without being hounded for selfies, which must be hard for someone so introverted.  She prefers reading and Lego to photoshoots.

On court, however, Swiatek is a machine and utterly focused. This is her sixth Grand Slam title. There are surely many more to come.

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