Following her 6-0, 6-0 beatdown over Amanda Anisimova in the Wimbledon final on Saturday, Iga Swiatek picked up the microphone and spoke glowingly about how winning the biggest prize in tennis, on the grass courts that were meant to be her weakness, was something she could not have even dreamt of, “it was just way too far.”
Later, while addressing the media, she would bare her fangs, hitting out at those who doubted her. “For the past months, how the media sometimes described me – and I got to say, unfortunately, the Polish media – how they treated me and my team, it wasn’t really pleasant,” she said in the press conference.
“I hope they will just leave me alone and let me do my job because obviously you can see that we know what we are doing. I have the best people around me. I have already proved a lot. I know people want more and more. But it’s my own process, my own life and my own career. So hopefully I am going to have the freedom from them as well to let me do my job the way I want it,” she would add.
The two distinct reactions would perfectly sum up Swiatek’s feats. Phenomenal as her game may be – her aggressive baseline play is so destructive that Anismova is far from the first to feel its wrath – and polished as her public persona may be, beneath all of it lies a strong mental resilience. It has powered her to six Major titles. It was behind her when she recovered from what was her worst season in recent times, with the blight of a failed dope test hanging over her head, to produce the most remarkably dominant performance ever in a Wimbledon final.
It is the kind of resolve shown by the greats of the game, and that word has been thrown around in the aftermath of her unlikely triumph on Saturday. Sections of the international press called her ‘the greatest since Serena Williams.’ Comparisons with the past and her place in history may well be subjective, but there is little denying that Swiatek, after jumping over the grass hurdle few would have tipped her to cross, has now established herself as the greatest player of the current generation. The others have a lot of catching up to do.
Her haul of six Majors is the most for any active player on the women’s tour outside of Venus Williams. (Yes, the elder Williams sister is still active as she received a Wildcard recently to play in Washington DC). Swiatek is the only active player to have now won Majors on each of the three tennis surfaces, making her only the eighth player to achieve the feat, and at 24, the youngest since Serena to do so. Saturday was her 100th match win at Grand Slam level in just 120 matches, making her the quickest to that landmark since Serena as well.
And Swiatek’s displays are even grander considering just how much she has been up against this year. She struggled to get going under her new coach, Wim Fisette. After a lacklustre finish to 2024, she served a one-month ban after she tested positive for an illicit substance. An independent tribunal accepted that it was the result of a contamination of her sleeping medication and cleared her, but the ignominy and raised eyebrows remained.
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Her game faltered on her dominion of clay, where she had won Roland Garros four times. She was handed multiple humiliations before she lost her first match at the French Open in four years in the semifinal. All of this meant she arrived in London with little to no expectations, only to leave with the title. She dropped a total of 35 games through the draw, and only two in her semifinal and final combined. (She had beaten Belinda Bencic 6-2 6-0).
Swiatek’s game was always considered too tough for adaptation to grass. The heavy topspin forehand and extreme western grip were weapons that were too clay-coded. Not for the slicks. So what was behind the dramatic change in fortunes? Her steadiness under pressure, and that good-old resilience. “Tennis is a mental sport. But you need everything to win tournaments. Good tennis, good physicality, great focus. I just wanted to enjoy the time 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. I just focused on that and I really had fun,” she would later say.
Just an Australian Open triumph away from completing the career Grand Slam, and having reestablished herself atop the tennis world, things are only looking up for the 24-year-old Pole.
