Superb Swiatek into maiden Wimbledon final

Iga Swiatek might not have been enjoying a superlative season by her own high standards, but her display in the Wimbledon semi-final was a vintage performance.

And what’s more, it was on grass, the surface she has perhaps been less comfortable on. For years, she has been promising an improvement on the lawns, having never gone beyond the quarter-finals in SW19 previously. This year, however, her preparation looked a little different, heading straight from a disappointment on her beloved Paris clay to the courts of Bad Homburg and reaching her first-ever final on grass there.

Knowing she can win on grass has clearly helped her mindset at the Championships; she now has eight grass-court wins this season, the most in any year of her career thus far. She swatted away Belinda Bencic in a little over an hour, 6-2, 6-0. In the first set, she was ruthless in converting the two break points she had; in that second set she served up a bagel that had become synonymous with her not so long ago.

Only Billie Jean King (versus Rosie Casals in 1969) and Venus Williams (against Dinara Safina in 2009) have dropped fewer games than Swiatek’s two in a semi-final at the Championships in the Open Era.

It is a win that sees her into her maiden Wimbledon final, and makes her the only active female player to reach the final on all three surfaces in Grand Slam events, and at the age of 24 the youngest to do so since Justine Henin in 2002.

Bencic: Iga was a different level

Bencic, for her part, was pragmatic.

“I definitely thought today was just a different level from Iga,” she said in her post-match press conference. “I thought she played amazing and didn’t feel like she let me in the match for one second.

“Of course, I gave my best. I’m really proud of this tournament. There’s nothing I really regret today. Yeah, in the end she was just too good, and I was a step too short.”

The Pole is now into her first Grand Slam final since Roland-Garros last year, bidding for her first title of 2025. She – and her opponent Amanda Anisimova – will know that she is, as yet, undefeated in trophy matches at Slams.

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