Iga Swiatek was crowned Wimbledon champion for the first time on Saturday. In the duel between two debutants in the final at the "Mecca" of tennis, the 24-year-old Pole dismantled the three-month-younger American Amanda Anisimova in the final in 57 minutes, 6-0, 6-0. After four French Open titles and one US Open, Swiatek also won her first major triumph on grass and now has six trophies.
She returns to third place in the WTA rankings and earns £3 million (€3.47 million). One could feel sorry for the 23-year-old American, daughter of Russian immigrants, because she simply couldn't find her way in the game. After just 42 minutes, she was already 0:9 (0:6, 0:3) behind. There was no trace of her great quality, for example in the semifinals, when she eliminated world number one Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Anisimova was very nervous from the start, while Swiatek, who has much more experience in these types of events, seized every opportunity with composure.
The "heavy arm" that could be seen in the outsider and the long wait for a match seemed to multiply. The break in the first match was followed by breaks at 3-0 and 5-0. In the last two games of the first set, Anisimova did not score a point.
She had already won the Paris final 6-0, 6-0. Interestingly, Anisimova had eliminated Kazakhstan's Julia Putintseva 6-0, 6-0 in the first round. Now she has suffered the same fate on the biggest stage in front of an audience of millions.
Incidentally, it was the second women's final of the Open era to end in a result known as "glasses" in tennis slang. In 1988, Steffi Graf had humiliated Russian Natascha Zwerewa twice, 6-0, in just 34 minutes at the French Open. Swiatek is the first player since Serena Williams (2002) to win Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces. Furthermore, in the professional era (since 1968), only Margaret Court and Monica Seles have won their first six Grand Slam finals before her.
