Ice against fire? Wimbledon’s grass was warmer than usual, since instead of the usual problems with rain delays the weather issue this year at the All England Club’s legendary Championships was heat, causing faster bounces on speedier surfaces, giving an edge to the players with the most pace and power. Whether this is scientifically verifiable may be discussed, but it sure worked out for the eventual champions, Iga Świątek and Jannik Sinner.
Of the two men at the top of tennis, who have been splitting the majors over the past couple of years, Carlos Alcaraz would be fire, Jannik Sinner would be ice. The Spaniard’s game is an explosion of saves and shot placement; the Italian’s is about control of space and rhythm. His forehand is the hardest, fastest on the tour. Alcaraz is like a genius jazzman improvising a riff on a piece by Dave Brubeck; Sinner is a prodigy playing a cantata by J.S. Bach. Face to face in a final for the first time, with Alcaraz defending the title he won last year and the year before that, it was modern against classic, and classic won.
It was a beautiful match; but outside two tense moments, it was not the dramatic clash of titans observers expected. Alcaraz, whose disrupting tactics had been held in check for eight games in the first set, maneuvered Sinner out of position and got the crucial points in the ninth and tenth games, to take the set 6-4. The shock to Sinner was apparent at the beginning of the second set, but he steadied his game, raised it, and never lost control — until the fourth set, when on two or three points while leading 5-4 it appeared he might be broken. It was impossible not to be reminded of the final at the French Open just weeks ago, when Alcaraz saved three championship points against Sinner and went on to take a fifth set tiebreak. Not this time; Sinner held his nerve, stopped the rally, and closed out, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.
In the ladies’ draw, the situation was similar if not the same: there was intense discipline and control all right, but only on one side. The entire duration of the match was a drama, and it is a good thing it took less than an hour because the ferocity of the rout was nearly unbearable.
What created this situation was that the finalists were each living an intense personal drama. Iga Świątek, at 24 Poland’s most famous and popular athlete and an established power on the women’s tour with five wins at majors, came to London, without any trophies since last summer, and suffered an early exit at Paris scarcely a month ago. Could she get out of her slump or was she turning out to be a short-career wonder? And against her, Amanda Anisimova, less than a year younger, who had been one of the brightest teenage stars of the rising American cohort, was struggling to come out of a deeper slump provoked in large part by the loss of her father, who had guided and coached her.
The beauty of it was that they were both playing fantastic in London, Miss Świątek breezing through her matches and Miss Anisimova taking down, in the semis, the mighty World No. 1 (and Iga’s great rival) Aryna Sabalenka, whom everyone expected to win. You could cheer them both and let the better girl win and it all would be for the good and the glory of the world’s oldest and most storied tennis tournament.
Well, if Alcaraz was playing Brubeck to Sinner’s Bach, Anisimova played Chopin to Świątek’s Chuck Berry, notwithstanding Iga is the one from near Warsaw. There was no contest, none at all. Miss Świątek went into the match with a fierce focus that would have been hard to beat under any circumstances, her high-pace forehands and her sharpshooter services working with a precision that would put anyone, even her great rivals Aryna and Coco Gauff, on the defensive. And Miss Anisimova just could not react. She was, it was clear from the first game, in no condition to play in a final.
If you have ever doubted that being alone on a tennis court — the euphemism is “individual sport” — in a 15,000 seat stadium with high tech broadcasting your every move to thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) around the world, can be intimidating, and even debilitating — this is what the phrase “stage fright” refers to — take a look at replays of this event.
The score was 6-0, 6-0, unheard of at a Wimbledon final since, I think someone mentioned, 1911. It was enough to make you want Miss Świątek to relent, slow down, hit a few soft ones; but of course that would only have made it worse. Miss Anisimova was in tears even before the end of the match, and broke down again as she looked toward her mother in the stands, seeing, one can imagine, her father sitting with her, and apologized for the poor show even as she thanked her team and the fans for helping her get this far. And the new champion had kind words of encouragement, see you again here soon and that sort of thing, and Coco Gauff sent out words of support.
Still, it could not have happened to nicer young people, the four finalists, and on a nicer English weekend — the men’s doubles, fortuitously, was won by an English team, first time in over half a century. Iga’s determination to prove she could return to her great form at the top of tennis, Amanda’s heroic efforts after all she has been through, like the passionate Russian girl she still is inside the American-born-and-bred one, Carlito’s passionate furia and Jannik’s sublimely elegant and disciplined power, these are the qualities tennis brings us, and we can thank the All-England Lawn Tennis for providing the space for the gift.