Tennis keeps surprising Iga Swiatek. The ladies’ singles champion also said she keeps surprising herself.
This was a startling day on Centre Court when describing this as a double bagel triumph for Swiatek was – oddly enough – to undersell her dominance on the grass this summer.
She was the first champion since 1911 to win 6-0, 6-0, beating Amanda Anisimova inside an hour. Swiatek also completed her semi-final victory over Belinda Bencic with a 6-0 set on her run to lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish.
There was also another 6-0 to consider in the blur of the first final with a later start time of 4pm: Swiatek is the first woman since Monica Seles in 1992 to win her first six Grand Slam finals.
Swiatek becomes the first Polish player to win a singles title at Wimbledon.
Everything about this Fortnight has been a pleasant surprise for the 24-year-old, who had never previously gone beyond the quarter-finals at the All England Club.
“Being Wimbledon champion sounds amazing and pretty surreal. I’m appreciating every minute. I’m proud of myself because who would have expected that?
“Tennis keeps surprising me and I keep surprising myself,” she said.
If she was an unexpected champion, it was the scoreline that was so astonishing. Had Swiatek won this in a tight three-set match, this still would still have felt extraordinary for the former world No.1, who has previously won four Roland-Garros titles and one US Open crown.
“The fact it’s on grass, this makes it even more special and more unexpected, so the emotions are bigger. At Roland-Garros, I know I can play well,” she said.
“Here I wasn’t sure and I had to prove that to myself. I’m not going to rank [my Grand Slams].
“Here and the US Open feel better because no one expected them. It was just good tennis. There wasn’t any baggage on my shoulders.”
When Swiatek plays at Roland-Garros, she feels as though only winning the title is ever good enough – and this year she went out in the semi-finals.
Coming to Wimbledon this summer, expectations were lower and she enjoyed the freedom that came from that.
Receiving the Venus Rosewater Dish from the Princess of Wales, the Patron of the All England Club, made a remarkable afternoon even more memorable for Swiatek.
I had to enjoy playing so well on grass because who knows whether that will happen again?
“On the court, she congratulated me and said some nice stuff about my performance. I didn’t want to make a faux pas. Since I was a kid, I’ve been a big fan of the royals,” she said.
Had you thought Swiatek’s love of strawberries with pasta was going to be the least-expected serving suggestion of the Fortnight, its revelation came before she won her first Wimbledon final without losing a game.
The scoreline was as historic as it was surprising: this hadn’t happened in a Grand Slam final since Steffi Graf dismantled Nastasha Zvereva at Roland-Garros in 1988, and not at Wimbledon since Dorothea Lambert Chambers overwhelmed Dora Boothby 114 years ago.
“I’m going to celebrate with something more crazy than pasta and strawberries,” Swiatek said.
Remarkable to think that Anisimova opened her Fortnight with a 6-0, 6-0 victory of her own, beating Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan in 44 minutes in the first round.
Grass was supposed to be the surface that didn’t suit Swiatek’s game. This summer, the Pole shed all the awkwardness of previous years at the All England Club and discovered she can play on the lawns.
“I had to enjoy playing so well on grass,” she said, “because who knows whether that
will happen again?”