Amanda Anisimova seemed to have ended up in a ‘nightmare’ in the Wimbledon final against Iga Swiateek: 6-0 and 6-0

Amanda Anisimova bounces with the ball for about ten seconds when she stands with her back to the track. She takes a moment of rest on the CenterCourt of Wimbledon, Saturday late in the afternoon. She breathes deeply. Talk to courage. She has just lost another rally from Iga Swiatek, a forehand lands at least a meter behind the baseline. Immediately after, Anisimova shakes her head.

The pressure of Swiatek (24) is scorching. Her services, Groundstrokes, Returns and Volleys are so pure, hard and sharp that Anisimova (23) hardly has time. And no rhythm either. That she is very nervous in her first grand slam final does not help her game either. 6-0 and 2-0 she is behind, 15-equal on their own service. If she still wants to turn the final, no matter how complicated that scenario is, a start must now be made.

So don’t immediately find out a double break, as happened in the first set. Swiatek is already ready to receive the service from Anisimova. The Polish, five -time Grandslam champion, wants to keep the pace high to stay in her invincible intoxication. Where Anisimova tries to stop time.

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Mental health

As she also took a break from tennis to work on her mental health two years ago. “It has become unbearable to participate in tennis tournaments,” written They on Instagram in May 2023. The burnout, as she called it, built up in the years before. Anisimova, daughter of Russian parents who emigrated to the United States before birth, was considered a super talent. In 2019, at the age of seventeen, she reached the semi -final of Roland Garros.

The death of her father Konstantin – in August 2019 after a heart attack, shortly before the eighteenth birthday of Anisimova – changed a lot. He was her head coach for a long time after mother Olga had taught the principles of Tennis in the first years. “This is clearly the most difficult thing that has ever happened to me, and I don’t really talk to anyone about it,” said Anisimova in 2020 in The New York Times.

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During her break she went on vacation, visited friends, followed a semester at the university and started painting. “What I have learned is to listen honestly to yourself, to your intuition and what your body tells you,” she said in London last week. Her tennis break lasted eight months before she returned to the Tour as number 373 in the world in early 2024.

That same year she lost in qualifying for Wimbledon. But gradually the results got better. At the beginning of this year she won a strongly occupied tournament in Doha, recently she was a finalist at a preparation tournament on grass. At Wimbledon herself she impressed with her hard, flat strokes, especially in a beautiful fight in the semi -final against Aryna Sabalenka, the number one in the world. Maybe the match of the tournament.

Punishment threatens

But now in the final against Swiatek she seems to have ended up in a “nightmare”, says commentator and former player John Mcenroe on the BBC. SWIATEK – Actually a clay specialist, she won Roland Garros four times – plays this tournament tennis of another order. In the semi-final she defeated Belinda Bencic with 6-2 and 6-0.

Such a punishment now also threatens. That is why Anisimova tries to recover if she serves at 0-2 and 15-15 in the second set. In fact, she does everything well at the next point. Excellent first service, then a forehand deep in the backhand angle of Swiateek. It saves with a high ball back, Anisimova takes off the sky in one go, which is technically difficult. The doubt in her forehand is unmistakable – in full or not? She hits the net low. And then bends forward despond.

The hesitation of Anisimova stabs sharply with the undisturbedness of Swiateek. The Polish pept itself at 6-0 and 4-0 as if a crucial point is waiting. “Everything clicks,” says Mcenroe at the BBC. She plays with a lot of aggression and at the same time control. Almost like a machine, so conscientious. Where she used to have a lot of trouble on grass, on Wimbledon she never got further than the quarterfinals.

Doubt about integrity

This superiority also preceded a difficult period at Swiateek. Partly due to a doping suspension, she lost her first place in the world ranking. Last fall she was not allowed to play for a month – she missed three tournaments – because she had tested positively on the forbidden Substance Trimetazidine. Swiatek successfully appealed: the doping body in tennis thought it was likely that there was a contaminated agent – melatonin – which contained trimetazidine traces.

Although the violation was not deliberately assessed, Swiatek found the uncertainty about the ruling and the doubt about her integrity difficult. “It was terrible,” said them in January in the podcast Tennis Insider Club. Swiatek, quite modest of himself, feared that people would keep a negative picture of her and turn against her.

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She no longer won a tournament after the suspension – her last title was Roland Garros last year. Now, after 57 minutes, Swiatek serves for the Wimbledon title, for a rare 6-0 and 6-0 in a grand slam final. Steffi Graf did that in 1988 for the last time on Roland Garros against Natasha Zvereva. On Wimbledon this goes back to 1911, when Dorothea Lambert Chambers with such a ‘Double Bagel‘Dora Boothby defeated – well before the professional age.

Even Mcenroe is quiet for a moment on the BBC, when Swiateek decides the party with a backhandwinner. 6-0, 6-0. But the most impressive applause is for Anisimova, when she thanks her mother in the stands in tears. “She is the most selfless person I know, she has done everything to bring me to this point in my life.”

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