Iga Swiatek winning a grand slam title should not be a big surprise, but that it came at Wimbledon in 2025 where she was the number 8 seed and hadn’t won a title in over a year, on a surface she notoriously has had little success at? Yes, a surprise but in retrospect, really not a surprise that she absolutely flattened Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in 57 minutes. The thing that really stood out in Swiatek’s run and in her reactions was just how happy and relaxed she looked! Two adjectives not often used about her in the past few months. A confident Iga Swiatek is one of the very best players in the world and she was totally deserving of this title. In a hotter than average Wimbledon, Iga was on fire!

It has been a tough 12 months or so for Iga. It all began with a chastening defeat here at Wimbledon a year ago to Yulia Putinseva – a player incidentally who Anisimova beat 6-0, 6-0 in the first round in 2025! Iga then had the heartbreaking loss at the Paris Olympics – a tournament she had very much targetted as her dad is a former Olympian. Her defeat in the semifinals by Zheng Qinwen was her first loss on the Phillippe Chatrier court for 4 years. She was well beaten by Sabalenka in Cincinnati and Pegula at the US Open before her autumn was blighted by a drugs offence scare. Swiatek had taken melatonin to help her sleep and it was contaminated by the manufacturer leading to a positive test. If you are a tennis watcher, you will know that Swiatek is a tightly wound player and I can only imagine how this must have affected her. She didn’t get out of the group stage at the WTA finals (yay Barbie K!) and lost her end of year number 1 ranking to Aryna Sabalenka.

A loss to Madison Keys in the semifinal of the Australian Open after having a match point was followed by more defeats – some ball slamming in her loss to Mirra Andreeva in Indian Wells and most shockingly, a loss to wild card Alexandra Eala in Miami. Going into the clay season, Swiatek was defending 4000 points having won Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros in 2024. Yes she lost, but it was the manner of some of those defeats that was most shocking. She looked all at sea in a 6-1,6-1 drubbing by Coco Gauff in the Madrid semifinals and was bagelled by Aryna Sabalenka in the third set of their semifinal at Roland Garros. Notice though, that while these defeats were coming, Swiatek was still getting to the latter stages of these tournaments.

In Bad Homburg just before Wimbledon, Swiatek finally made a final – her first ever on grass but was beaten by Jess Pegula, however, she was already looking better on grass than she had been in previous years – which should have been a sign. The fact is, Iga was not in the spotlight, expectations were low and she seemed to have made some adjustments to her game. Most importantly, she served brilliantly – always a key factor at Wimbledon. She was regularly pushing 118-120mph, winning most service games and top of the points won on first serve. Importantly, her second serve, which historically has been a weakness, was also solid. She seemed to have shortened up her swing on her forehand and was not running around the backhand. Iga was also just very relaxed – causing a social media storm with her declared love of pasta with strawberries (!!) and surreptitiously squirrelling away a stack of Wimbledon towels! Poor Amanda Anisimova could hardly have had a worse opponent in her first grand slam final. They hadn’t played before and Anisimova discovered what most players not called Ostapenko know – Iga is tough to beat when she’s in form. She is also a ruthless, efficient winner that harks back to Steffi Graf in the way she dismantles opponents. It is hard not to summise that Anisimova played her final 2 days earlier. She clearly has a strategy that troubles Sabalenka and the fast courts meant her flat shots skidded through on Sabalenka. Against Iga, Anisimova looked nervy and weary, and had real trouble getting her shots away while Iga just got to everything, playing freer than we have seen in years.

Maybe it is a World number 1 thing, as all of the pressure and expectation was on Aryna Sabalenka’s shoulders, who began Wimbledon doing TikTok dances with Coco Gauff to show there was no hard feelings after US fans came for her blood! Sabalenka had a run of fabulously competitive matches – probably some of the best of the tournament – before being beaten by Anisimova in the semifinals.

Probably the best atmosphere on centre court of the entire 2 weeks was the first Friday night when Sabalenka played Raducanu. It was prime time – around 8pm under the lights with the roof closed. Raducanu was playing really well, causing Sabalenka to have to dig really deep.

Sabalenka had a great battle with former doubles partner, Elise Mertens, before narrowly beating German veteran Laura Siegemund, who had taken out one of the favourites, Madison Keys earlier in the tournament. Siegemund played a clever match, using slices, drop shots and all her tricks. Once again Sablenka had to dig deep for one of her toughest ever wins. Anisimova is someone who has given Sabalenka trouble in the past and actually led the head to head 5-3, and this was crucial in Anisimova’s victory in the semifinals, but abject defeat in the final. Tennis is all about match ups and Sabalenka looked edgy while Anisimova looked serenely confident.

As a Sabalenka fan, I was very disappointed as I think an Iga-Aryna final would have been a lot of fun. Instead, Anisimova’s beatdown raised all the old criticisms of women’s tennis by the uninformed. However quite honestly, Aryna never looked totally comfortable on the grass, where the ball stays low – making it hard for Sabalenka to hit her big shots. While she moves so much better than she has in the past, Sabalenka is not a natural. Crucially, her return of serve was not great all tournament, with her dumping the ball in the net far too often. She is also facing up to the fact that EVERYONE brings their best when they play the world number 1! Qualifier Carson Branstine pushed her in the second set, Marie Bouzkova had a go, Raducanu, Mertens, Siegemund and Anisomova. Everyone wants to push you off your perch! She had to work incredibly hard for her wins and maybe even Aryna gets a bit mentally exhausted? She has gone deep in tournament after tournament, and was pushed hard in all of these matches. Sabalenka has now lost 3 big matches to American opponents in 2025 – Madison Keys in the Australian Open final, Coco Gauff in the French Open final and Amanda Anisimova in the Wimbledon semifinal. I would argue these were all winnable matches, but ultimately Sabalenka didn’t do enough and her opponent played better. This is nothing new for her. She has been a big player who often seemed to have trouble in big matches for years, and she DOES have three grand slam titles. But with the form she has been in and chances she has missed, she could genuinley have 6 or 7 slams by now. However, as Rafael Nadal memorably said ‘If, if if… does not exist.’ Sabalenka must once again regroup and reset. And hope the US fans have cooled their jets!

One of my biggest concerns of this Wimbledon was that Barbora Krejcikova would emmulate her compatriot Marketa Vondrousova and lose in the first round of her defence. The signs were not good. Barbora had been absent for about 6 months with a back injury and on her return hadn’t looked great. However, she had got a win over Tatjana Maria at Roland Garros – actually her first singles win since lifting the title in 2021. Krejcikova infamously lost to Diane Parry in the first round in 2022 in defence of her title. Would history repeat? I had been lucky in the Wimbledon ticket ballot and had selected day 2 centre court when I was assured of seeing Krejcikova. The draw was not kind – Alexandra Eala who had beaten Iga Swiatek in Miami and had just made the final in Eastbourne. Krejcikova herself had a pretty memorable Eastbourne – saving match points to win against two Brits, Harriet Dart and Jodie Burrage, then having to withdraw with a thigh strain. She also had a memorable doubles team up with Jelena Ostapenko which was one win then a withdrawal.

Anyway, on a swelteringly hot day, Barbora Krejcikova opened up on centre, cheered on by me as loudly as I could! She dropped the first set and I was worried but then she got going nicely and won the last two sets 6-2, 6-1 as young Alex Eala flagged. Things started to look even more promising when Krejcikova got a good win over Caroline Dolehide and she and Angel Chan had a terrific win in doubles, putting out Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani in straight sets in round two of the women’s doubles. Krejcikova really was serving well and striking the ball beautifully. Her third round match against Emma Navarro began really well, with Barbora playing her brand of precise power tennis and at 6-2 and a break up, I was optimisitic. Unfortunately, that’s where things went wrong. Krejcikova later said it was a viral illness that basically took away her energy. She fought really hard but the sight of Barbora in tears on the court was so tough to see.

What was really frustrating is that Navarro didn’t do anything special and was easily beaten by Mirra Andreeva in the 4th round, who was easily beaten by Belinda Bencic in the quarter finals, who was easily beaten by Iga Swiatek in the semifinals! However, all things considered, Krejcikova showed signs that her best tennis is still there. Let’s just hope fitness is too. She has dropped to 77 in the rankings now, but with little to defend until the WTA finals points drop off in November, hopefully she can work her way back up the rankings,

Emma Navarro on court 1 was not a great mix for my favourites as Navarro put an end to Petra Kvitova’s Wimbledon career on day 2. I had been desperately trying to get someone to swap tickets with me so I could go and see the match but sadly couldn’t – which might have been for the best as Navarro won 6-3, 6-1 but at least Petra got to say goodbye. *sniff*

On a happier note, Katerina Siniakova won the mixed doubles! She and Dutch partner Sem Verbeek took out Joe Salisbury and Luisa Stefani in a tight final on centre court. Sinakova adds an 11th grand slam title and a first mixed doubles title to her tally. However, playing pretty much every day took its toll as she and partner Taylor Townsend looked flat in their semi final loss to Jelena Ostapenko and Su-Wei Hsieh. Sinakova had pulled off one of the many upsets when she beat 5th seed Zheng Qinwen in the first round of the singles before losing to Naomi Osaka in round 2. She played 12 matches in 11 days so no wonder her legs looked heavy by the end. Her partner Verbeek was exactly the happy, smiling positive partner Siniakova needed, but she also looked very relaxed and served really well. Last year it was a weeping Taylor Townsend she accompanied to her first grand slam title, this year it was an emotional Sem Verbeek winning his first slam title. Siniakova really is a doubles legend! Ostapenko had the chance to overtake Siniakova and claim the number 1 ranking in doubles for the first time in her career but Elise Mertens and Veronika Kudermetova edged a great three set final to allow Katka to hold onto her #1 world ranking. Phew!

A few other thoughts from Wimbledon. There were a LOT of upsets. While Coco Gauff’s defeat at the hands of Dayana Yastremska might have seemed like the biggest, after she won Roland Garros, this always looked like a tough first round. Gauff’s forehand is espcially rushed on grass and the faster courts means even she can’t run everything down. Yastremska is an unpredicatable power player who made the final in Nottingham the week before so was clearly comfortable on grass. However, Coco will bask in the glory of her second grand slam title at Roland Garros – and forget about her 0/2 grass season!

A bigger shock was Jess Pegula – who beat Iga Swiatek in the final in Bad Homburg – go out in the first round to Elisabetta Cocciaretto. I didn’t see the match as I was on the grounds that day getting a coffee by court 2 as Jess was losing! By all accounts Cocciaretto played a superb match but I thought Pegula had a good chance here. The other shocking result of the favoured players was probably Madison Key’s loss to Laura Siegemund. Keys has a great game for grass and was a genuine contender here. I will remember her crazy round 1 match againt Elena-Gabriela Ruse for a while, with Ruse getting the shakes and throwing up! However one of the most remarkable things about her defeat to the slicing and dicing Laura Siegemund was that she won precisely ONE point on second serve in the entire match – and that was to save match point! Apparently Madi was a bit sick but it was still quite the surprise.

The heat was a major story at Wimbledon this year. Us Brits aren’t used to high temperatures and over 30 degrees Celcius is too hot! I was there on day 2 and was a stinky sweaty mess by the time I got home! The players were mostly fine but there were multiple stoppages on centre court for spectators suffering from the heat. It also made the courts hard and perhaps was a factor in the victories of Iga Swiatek and Jannik Sinner – not players with much of a grass pedigree.

Finally, a shout out to this Twitter legend who came up with THE wildest prediction.. again!

Goodbye to the short and sweet grass season for another year.