In that moment, it was impossible not to recall the horrendous scenes that unfolded in the same spot in 2022, when the German was left writhing in agony after tearing his ankle ligaments against Rafael Nadal.

Happily for Zverev, this time was different: a moment of catharsis in the broadest and most literal sense. He had just done what many thought he might never do. By defeating Italy’s Flavio Cobolli in a match spanning more than four hours and five sets to win the French Open, the 29-year-old had secured his first grand slam title, at the fourth time of asking. 

With his 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-1 victory, Zverev cleansed the painful emotions associated with the injury that derailed him four years ago, and applied a salve to similarly excruciating memories of his previous grand slam final defeats against Dominic Thiem at the 2020 US Open, Carlos Alcaraz two summers ago in Paris, and Jannik Sinner last year in Melbourne. In a sporting sense, at least, the pain of those moments was eased and Zverev’s sense of self renewed. 

What did Alexander Zverev say after his French Open victory?

“This court is so special to me in so many ways,” he told the French crowd. “I’ve had the best moments of my life on this court, I’ve had the worst moment of life on this court. I was laying in that corner over there, four years ago, with seven broken ligaments and two fractured bones. I lost a grand slam final here two years ago. But now, finally, it’s a happy end.”

For those who struggle to forget that Zverev has twice denied accusations of domestic abuse, the last of those sentiments will be problematic. 

Two years ago, the German reached an out-of-court settlement with his former partner Brenda Patea, the mother of his child, after she claimed he had physically assaulted her. Zverev denied Patea’s claims, just as he did those of another former girlfriend, Olya Sharypova. The ATP commissioned an independent investigation into the latter case, with the inquiry concluding there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations.

Alexander Zverev, Flavio Cobolli and a French Open final of uneven quality

If the identity of the new champion was not to the satisfaction of all, the same could be said of the uneven quality of the tennis on show. While Zverev’s level fluctuated, particularly as the finish line beckoned in the fourth set, Cobolli, seeded 10th and contesting his first major final, began the afternoon nervously and finished it physically compromised and far below his best. 

Yet the 24-year-old showed spirit to force his way into the match after a slow start and, while he will have better days, he produced enough moments of quality to make it competitive. If it remained a far cry from the sporting banquet put on by Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in last year’s final, neither was it a case of feast to famine. Not quite, at any rate.

After overhitting early on, Cobolli began to play with greater patience and margin in the second set. It meant that when the previously flawless Zverev faltered for the first time, throwing in a pair of double faults in the seventh game, Cobolli was well placed to take advantage. With the match all square, however, it was Zverev’s turn to dig in. Having moved within a game of restoring his lead at 5-4, he was rewarded with a flurry of forehand errors from Cobolli that left him just one set away from finally ending his grand slam drought.

It was an unmissable opportunity. The unique circumstances that conspired to elevate the second-seeded German to the status of title favourite – the withdrawal of Alcaraz, the two-time defending champion, Sinner’s shock defeat to Juan Manuel Cerúndolo in the second round, Joao Fonseca’s win over Novak Djokovic in the third – may never be repeated.

How Zverev lost his way in the fourth set of the French Open final

But that reality appeared to weigh heavily on Zverev in the fourth set, much as the leads he held against Thiem and Alcaraz in previous major finals had done. He began the set by dropping serve and, although he belatedly got back on level terms when Cobolli served for the set, the metronomic efficiency of the first and third sets was now a distant memory. With Zverev tightening, the door remained ajar. 

Despite struggling on serve, a problem that dogged him throughout, Cobolli forced his way through in the ensuing tiebreak, hammering a huge forehand winner to tie the proceedings once more. “I just closed my eyes,” said Cobolli. “That sometimes helps.” 

With Zverev beginning to labour physically, albeit more through pressure than any loss of condition, the momentum was clearly with the lower-ranked man going into the decider. 

“I was cramping,” Zeverev admitted. “I was struggling physically a little bit, even though I don’t think the cramps were physical, I think they were mental. I was very tightened up, I was very emotional. 

“I was a bit unstable also, in the fourth set. But I actually think that the cramps helped me in a way. I think that I let go, I hit my shots a bit more.”

In the event, though, that was more than Cobolli could do. Unbeknown to his opponent, the Italian was also suffering. His progress to the title round had been eased by the withdrawal of his friend and fellow countryman Matteo Arnaldi with a virus, but the pressure of the occasion seemed to outweigh the benefits of any additional rest. The decider slipped away quickly.    

“I felt cramps on my calf,” said Cobolli, reflecting on the final moments of the fourth set. “I tried my best on the changeover, I took all five minutes. But my calf was gone. At the end, after the second game [of the fifth set], also my quad. I felt completely tired. My body left me on the court.”

Where do Zverev and Cobolli go from here?

While Cobolli will hope to grace such a stage again – “When you reach the first final, why not the second?” he mused – Zverev expressed optimism that, having finally shaken off the label of being one of the best players never to win a major, more such moments might lie ahead.

“Maybe my mind will just be a little bit calmer when I play a final,” he said. “If I had lost this one, the self-belief would’ve gone down a lot. Now that I’ve won it, I feel I can do it again.”

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In blustery conditions at Roland Garros on Saturday, the promised end materialised as Andreeva, the eighth seed, saw off Polish qualifier Maja Chwalińska 6-3, 6-2 to secure the first of what will surely be many grand slam titles.

That the breakthrough came in Paris, where the 19-year-old Russian made her debut at this level three years ago, felt apt. She marked that maiden grand slam campaign in 2023 with a run to the third round, where she fell to Coco Gauff in three sets. But Andreeva’s emergence that year is perhaps best remembered for her declaration that she hoped to finish her career with 25 majors.

Time alone will tell whether she can make good on that vaulting ambition. For the moment, however, one will do just fine. That point was underlined when Andreeva posed afterwards alongside her coach, the former Wimbledon champion Conchita Martínez. As both women held a single finger aloft, the message was clear: one down. There will be time for the next 24.

Mirra Andreeva: ‘It’s been one of my biggest dreams’

“It’s been one of my biggest dreams,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of thoughts on how it’s going to happen, if it’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, where. The feeling in real life is, I would say, so much better than in your dreams.”

On championship point, as Andreeva applied the coup de grâce with her 25th winner of the afternoon before sinking to her knees, the overriding sense was of destiny being fulfilled in real time. 

Since the open era began in 1968, only Monica Seles, Aranxta Sanchez Vicario and Steffi Graf have lifted the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen at a younger age, while this century only Maria Sharapova and Emma Raducanu, at 17 and 18 respectively, have won a major earlier in their careers. 

In one respect, however, this was a victory quite unlike those that went before. The emergence of a teenage champion is normally accompanied by scenes of joy, emotion, spontaneity. Seles hurling her racket skywards in 1990, her smile illuminating an otherwise damp, gloomy Parisian afternoon. A giggling Sharapova trying in vain to call her mother from Wimbledon’s Centre Court following her 2004 win. 

This was different. Andreeva’s victory was a more knowing, choreographed affair – and never mind that she is barely older than the ball kids who later formed a cheering guard of honour as she descended the stairs into the bowels of Court Philippe Chatrier. 

Mirra Andreeva: ‘I want to thank myself’

Hardly had the red dirt settled before Andreeva was handed a jacket emblazoned with the words: “I want to thank myself,” a nod to the catchphrase she coined after winning her first tour-level event in Romania two years ago. Meanwhile, her team donned T-shirts bearing a picture of the new champion alongside the legend, “Fight beyond your years.” Never say the marketing fraternity don’t come prepared.

Perhaps the Andreeva camp’s preparedness was to be expected, a reflection of the gulf in status and experience between Chwalińska, who arrived in Paris for the qualifying event with a ranking of 114, and the first top-10 player she has faced in her career. Certainly there was a lack of jeopardy on a day when the Pole, previously so adept at bringing her craft and variety to bear, struggled to find her game in the swirling wind.

Yet this has been a French Open defined by the unexpected, and little has been more unexpected than Chwalińska’s carving run through the draw. A throwback to a more elegant era, with her variety and touch, she has discombobulated opponents with her ability to run down every ball and driven them to distraction with her deft drop shots and changes of pace and trajectory. Against a player whose scalps included Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng, former semi-finalist Maria Sakkari, and a trio of seeds in Elise Mertens, Anna Kalinskaya and Diana Shnaider,  Andreeva could take nothing for granted.

She knew as much, and it showed. No doubt well briefed by Martínez, Andreeva refused to be ensnared in Chwalińska’s web. She found a perfect balance between patience and aggression. She was alive to the danger posed by the Pole’s drop shots, and quick to move forward when they arrived. In every possible sense, she was prepared for victory.

Challenging conditions

It nonetheless took time for the teenager to settle. With the conditions challenging, an uneven start from both women produced four straight breaks, with Andreeva twice dropping serve on a double fault. But having held for the first time in the sixth game, she grew visibly in confidence, compiling a run of nine straight games to put the title beyond Chwalińska’s reach. 

The 24-year-old can, however, reflect with satisfaction on a run that propels her to a career-high ranking of 21. Nor is that the only sense in which Chwalińska finds herself among elevated company, given that Evonne Goolagong and Chris Evert are the only other women to make the final as main draw debutants in the open era. As a self-confessed tennis nerd, it is a distinction she will appreciate. 

Bailed out by the Polish sports drink firm Oshee when she ran out of funds to support her extended stay in Paris, Chwalińska will no doubt be equally appreciative of the €1.4m ($1.625m) cheque she will bank for her efforts, almost doubling her previous total career earnings.  

Maja Chwalińska: ‘It’s been 18 years of hard work, patience and perseverance’

“It’s been 18 years of hard work, patience and perseverance,” said Chwalińska, who was born in the southern Polish city of Dąbrowa Górnicza, an industrial hub where her father, Tomasz, worked as a coal miner and her mother, Marcela, was a receptionist.

“I had to go through so much to be in this position. Life is weird sometimes and you’ve just got to do your thing and believe it will click someday, and I’m happy that it did. It is definitely an unforgettable three weeks for me. I’ll never forget it.”

Neither will Andreeva, although she already appears more inclined to focus on the future.  

“I’m already thinking of how I’m going to prepare for the grass season and how I’m going to play,” said the teenager. “I feel like this thing is a little bit addicting. I really want to do my best to experience all of this for the second time.”

As ever with Andreeva, it is surely only a matter of time.

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It was the same familiar story on Wednesday as the 24-year-old Polish qualifier battled past Anna Kalinskaya, the Russian world No 24, to reach her first major semi-final 7-6 (7-3), 6-3. 

A case of same old, same old then? Hardly. Not in the wider scheme of things at any rate. Chwalińska’s best previous run at a grand slam came four years ago at Wimbledon, when she reached the second round. But in a tournament where shock results have come thick and fast, she has emerged as the queen of upsets. 

Across her eight matches so far, including three in qualifying, only Maria Sakkari, the Greek former world No 3, has been able to take a set off Chwalińska. Her haul of notable scalps includes Qinwen Zheng, winner of the Olympic title on the Parisian clay two summers back, as well as Elise Mertens, the 23rd seed, and Diane Parry, the last French hope, and now Kalinskaya, a former world No 11 who knows what it is to contest a grand slam quarter-final, having done so two years ago in Melbourne.

What did Maja Chwalińska say after her French Open win over Anna Kalinskaya?

“I honestly don’t know what’s going on,” a dazed Chwalińska told Caroline Garcia as she stood smiling on Court Philippe Chatrier afterwards. “I know I repeat myself, but every single match here is kind of crazy for me, so I’m very grateful.

“I was definitely nervous, it’s normal, I care. I’m stressed, of course, but I try to focus on my job, my game. I just try to win every match that I’m playing, but I’m not focusing on confidence. 

“I’m playing against the best players in the world, so I won’t compare myself to them.”

If she continues in this vein, Chwalińska may have no choice. She follows in the footsteps of her friend Iga Swiatek, a four-time champion in these parts, as just the second Pole to reach the last four at Roland Garros in the open era. Chwalińska also becomes one of only half a dozen qualifiers to make the semi-finals over that period, a feat last achieved by Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska in 2020. Not bad for a player who was struggling to fund her unexpectedly long stay in the French capital until the Polish sports drink company Oshee stepped in to help. 

Early signs that Kalinskaya’s superior firepower would carry the day proved deceptive. Having hit through Chwalińska to secure a break in the opening game, the Russian slowly became enmeshed in her opponent’s intricate web of southpaw spins and all-court guile. 

On a windy, overcast day in Paris, the slow conditions were grist to the mill for Chwalińska, whose combination of looping topspin forehands and viciously sidespun two-handers meant the onus was on Kalinskaya to generate her own pace. For a player who thrives on rhythm and power, it would prove an insoluble problem.

How did Maja Chwalińska disrupt Anna Kalinskaya?

Especially telling was Chwalińska’s disruptive use of the drop shot, a trademark weapon that exposed the limitations of Kalinskaya’s movement and effectiveness in the forecourt. Time and again the 27-year-old was left flailing at shoelace-level balls that left her looking ungainly and uncomfortable. Though alive to the danger – understandably so, given that Chwalińska had won 33 of the 38 drop shots she had attempted over the fortnight coming into the match – she was largely powerless to counter it.

It was not for the want of trying. Towards the end of the first set, and after being urged by her coach Patricia Tarabini to combine her natural aggression with greater patience, Kalinskaya belatedly began to find her range. Having lost five straight games, she twice broke Chwalińska as she served for the opener, fending off set points in both games. By the time she levelled at five games apiece, the qualifier’s scrambling feet had become the soundtrack to the contest, her defensive efforts becoming increasingly desperate.

Even as she threatened to falter, however, the danger posed by Chwalińska remained clear. Her craft and cunning were no less evident in the delicious lob volley winner with which she punctuated a brilliant 27-shot rally than they were on the many occasions when she snuck in mid-rally to volley away winners. 

It was perhaps the enduring sense of menace posed by Chwalińska that prompted Kalinskaya to lapse into error in the tiebreak that followed. When a backhand sailed long to signal the conclusion of the opening set, Kalinskaya’s unforced error tally stood at 29 to the Pole’s 10. 

Anna Kalinskaya: ‘The ball is coming at one mile an hour’

Three games into the second set, another untidy error cost the Russian a break from which she would not recover. Her mental turmoil was laid bare by the frustrated exchange with Tarabini that followed. “The ball is coming at one mile an hour and you want me to push?” barked the exasperated Kalinskaya. “That’s all you can do,” replied the Argentinian with a wan smile. By the end, it was far more than she could do.

As Kalinskaya sent a final ball long, Chwalińska held her head in her hands and then walked to the net with her hand over her mouth, a portrait of disbelief.

Food, rest and Netflix await, said the Pole, who will now face the winner of the day’s second quarter-final between Aryna Sabalenka and Diana Shnaider. If she finds anything more compelling to watch than her own run to the last four, she will be doing well.

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The 44-year-old, who returned to the drug-testing pool last October and has spent the eight months since playing down talk of a potential comeback, has been granted a wildcard to  play doubles alongside Victoria Mboko, the Canadian world No 9.

It will be Williams’ first appearance since she bade farewell to the sport at the 2022 US Open. At the time, the 23-time grand slam champion stopped short of saying she was retiring, suggesting instead that she was “evolving away” from tennis.

The possibility of a return drew closer in February, when Williams’ name was restored to the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s list of active players. 

But it was only when the former world No 1 posted a video of herself striding on to a tennis court that her plans became clear. “Guess everybody heard the news,” read the strapline. 

Serena Williams: ‘Queen’s Club feels like the perfect place to begin’

“Queen’s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter,” Williams said in a statement. “Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career, and I’m excited to be back competing on one of the sport’s most iconic stages.”

It remains to be seen whether the American’s appearance at Queen’s will be the prelude to a reappearance at Wimbledon, where she has lifted the Venus Rosewater dish on seven occasions. It is equally unclear whether she plans to return to the singles court. 

What we do know is that Williams has trodden a similar path before. In 2022, she ended a year-long injury hiatus by partnering Ons Jabeur at Eastbourne and went on to play singles at Wimbledon, where she was beaten in the opening round by Harmony Tan of France. 

Whatever her ultimate goal, the tennis world is certain to welcome Williams back into the fold. As one of the greatest players in the history of the game, there will be a place for her in the draw of any tournament she should wish to contest.

“Serena brought the game to another level and it is incredible for the sport that she’s pushing the boundaries and coming back,” said Martina Navratilova, whose record as the oldest former world No 1 to return to the tour, achieved two months shy of her 44th birthday, will now be eclipsed.

“To many of the younger players, they never had the opportunity to play her. Some may have never watched her on television. So this will be a new and exciting experience.”

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The British fifth seed, who had been scheduled to face Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in the second round, now faces another period on the sidelines after missing the recent Masters 1000 tournaments in Toronto and Cincinnati as he attempted to recover from a bruised bone in his upper left arm.

The injury, which Draper attempted to play down earlier this week, leaves him unable to defend the bulk of the 800 points he earned after reaching the semi-finals last year. He is projected to drop at least two places in the rankings to seventh as a result.

“Hi guys, I’m sorry to say I’ll be withdrawing from the US Open,” Draper announced on social media. “I tried my very best to be here and give myself every chance to play, but the discomfort in my arm has become too much and I have to do what is right and look after myself. Thank you for all the support.”

The irony is that Draper had appeared to be in particularly fine fettle after emerging from a seven-week hiatus last week to compete in the re-imagined mixed doubles event alongside Jessica Pegula. Always an imposing presence at 6ft 4in, he looked noticeably more muscular, a change he attributed to tennis-specific fitness work during his injury absence rather than a dedicated effort to bulk up with bench presses and the like.

Before his return at Flushing Meadows, where his mixed doubles run with Pegula culminated with a semi-final defeat to Casper Ruud and Iga Swiatek, Draper was last seen in competitive action at Wimbledon, where he was seeded fourth but was beaten in round two by former finalist Marin CIlic. By then, he had already been suffering with pain in his humerus, the bone that runs from the shoulder to the elbow, for several weeks.

“It was something I was playing through for a while,” Draper said after his win over Gomez on Monday. “I first started feeling it probably towards the middle of the clay season. I felt like my arm was shutting down a little bit when I was hitting forehands and on the serve. It kind of got progressively worse. Then, on the grass, it got quite painful. So I didn’t know what I was dealing with. 

“After the grass, I got it checked out. I had some bone stress, bone bruising, in my humerus on my left side. It is one of those where, if you keep playing with it, it could become very, very serious. So I had to take some time out. Saying that, it was not so bad, because I could obviously do a lot of other things as well physically. It wasn’t like I had to stop completely.” 

That situation has now changed, with a longer layoff seemingly required to solve the issue. Draper, who practised at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday and Wednesday before confirming his withdrawal, had been seeded to meet Jannik Sinner, the Italian world No 1, in the quarter-finals.

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Following the rapid turnaround that saw her hotfoot it from the Cincinnati Open to New York, where she began her mixed doubles campaign alongside Casper Ruud this time last week only hours after defeating Jasmine Paolini in the Cincinnati Open final, the Polish world No 2 finally got her singles campaign underway at Flushing Meadows.

This year’s Sunday start means the season’s final major is already well underway and, having entered the fray belatedly, Swiatek had the air of a woman eager to make up for lost time. She dispatched Emiliana Arango of Colombia 6-1, 6-2 in exactly an hour, delivering a performance as dominant as the scoreline would suggest to secure a second-round meeting with Suzan Lamens of the Netherlands.

If it was quick, Swiatek would not have it any other way. The concrete cacophony that is New York will never be the most natural habit for a woman who once wrote a column about her rise entitled: “The story of a Polish introvert”, although you would hardly have guessed it from the commanding nature of a display in which she fired 26 winners and did not face a single break point. Despite the summary nature of the win, Swiatek is evidently in no hurry to leave the city just yet.

Indeed, it was all very much business as usual for the Pole, who has now won 65 straight opening-round matches at tour level to eclipse the open-era record previously held by Monica Seles. That run includes 24 in a row at the majors, matching the mark achieved by her compatriot Agnieszka Radwanska – the most recent player to achieve such early-round consistency – between 2009 and 2015.

Those numbers will mean little to Swiatek; not when she has her sights set on the larger prize of a second US Open title to go with her 2022 victory. Yet they underline the wider sense of resurgence surrounding the 24-year-old after her unexpected run to the Wimbledon crown this summer. Gone is the player who endured a 13-month trophy drought, replaced by the serial winner of old – one who knows how to navigate the unique challenges of a city that reputedly never sleeps. 

“In 2022, it’s not like I played amazing from the beginning,” said Swiatek. “It was probably the toughest slam [in which] I had to overcome a lot of challenges and I managed to win it. Every year is kind of tough, you know, because New York is just so loud and it’s hard to find that balance off the court.

“I’ve got to say I’m probably good at it compared to other players, so I’m really trying to be in my bubble. The comfort level is hard to describe, because the tournament is so long, you’re basically here for three weeks, so obviously it’s not going to be the same every day. 

“But I feel pretty happy with my performance in Cincinnati, I’m trying to get some confidence from that. There are a lot of positive vibes in the team.”

So there should be. Opening rounds can be a tricky business, as Renata Zarazúa demonstrated when she dealt Madison Keys, the reigning Australian Open champion and a former US Open finalist, a 6-7 (10-12), 7-6 (7-3), 7-5 defeat on Monday. 

Keys, the sixth seed, led by a set and 3-0 but was undone by a whopping 89 unforced errors as the Mexican world No 82, who had never previously beaten a top-10 opponent, claimed the biggest win of her career.       

“I feel like today, for the first time in a while, my nerves really got the better of me, and it kind of became a little bit paralysing,” said Keys. “I want to win, but just feeling like winning matters just way too much, and I just couldn’t quite separate myself from that. Once you start playing badly, it just kind of all snowballs.”

The shock result offered another reminder that the kind of early-round consistency Swiatek has made her trademark can never be taken for granted. Not that the six-time grand slam champion is about to get carried away.   

“I’m happy that I had some time to just get used to the conditions and the surface, because for sure it’s different than the practice courts,” she said. “I think it was just a solid match, and I’m happy that I can play another round here.

The post Iga Swiatek hits the ground running at the US Open appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

Five weeks after their monumental duel at Roland Garros, expectations were understandably high at the prospect of the pair going at it again with the Wimbledon title on the line. But Paris, where Alcaraz fought back from a two-set deficit, saving three championship points to prevail after five hours and 29 minutes of extraordinary theatre, was inevitably a difficult act to follow.  

The encore was a relatively anticlimactic affair, high in quality but largely devoid of the tension and uncertainty that characterised the first instalment. If the French Open final was a wild rollercoaster ride, the follow-up in SW19 had a more Aristotelian quality, drama giving way to catharsis as Sinner exorcised memories of his ordeal on the Parisian clay with a clinical 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory. 

In securing his fourth grand slam title, and first away from the hard courts of Melbourne Park and Flushing Meadows, the 23-year-old ended a run of five straight defeats to Alcaraz and became the first Italian to lift a Wimbledon singles trophy. For a player who returned from a 12-week drugs suspension in early May after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid that purportedly entered his system through a massage, it represents a remarkable turnaround.

“Very emotional, no, even if I don’t cry,” said Sinner, reflecting on the moments following victory, when he crouched low on the Centre Court grass, his head bowed as he tried to process the enormity of it all. “It feels emotional because only me and the people who are close to me know exactly what we have been through on and off the court, and it has been everything except easy. 

“We’ve tried to push, you know, every practice session, even [though] I was struggling at times mentally. Maybe even more in practice sessions, because I feel like when I play the match, I can switch off and just play. I believe that this helped me a lot. 

“To share this moment with my family here, my whole family here, it’s the most amazing thing that could have happened to me.”

It was nonetheless a curious match, entertaining yet strangely dissatisfying, the whole somehow less than the immaculately crafted parts. That owed much to the essentially linear nature of the contest, which was controlled by Sinner aside from an electric four-game passage in which Alcaraz rebounded from 4-2 down to win the opening set. If the momentum shifts of their French Open meeting were plotted on a graph, the pattern would have formed a zigzag, gentle at first and then ever more frenetic; here, the Italian’s first-set early blip aside, things proceeded more or less in a straight line. 

That is not to deny the excellence of the ball-striking from both men, or the mental steel Sinner exhibited in wresting back control after falling behind. But for once, Alcaraz failed to keep his end of the deal, failed to find that signature spark of inspiration; for once, he waved the wand only to find the magic wanting. He entered the stage as a two-time defending champion on a 24-match winning streak, but left it with his recent aura of invincibility punctured, if not his smile. 

It was a reminder that Alcaraz, who had won each of his five previous grand slam finals, is fallible after all. That he is not just a walking highlight reel. There are moments when the things he does on a tennis court appear almost otherworldly, yet rarely has he seemed more human than when he looked forlornly towards his box after being broken late in the third set, yelling in his native tongue: “He is playing much better than me.” 

“At some points I didn’t know what I had to do in the match, because from the baseline I was feeling he was better than me, and I couldn’t do anything about it,” Alcaraz later explained. “I think the big key was about the second serve. He was returning really well the second serve that I was hitting. 

“Thanks to that, he was in the position to attack the second ball every time. It is really difficult when you are feeling that you are just defending all the time and running from side to side.”

Alcaraz is still Alcaraz and inevitably, over the course of three hours and four minutes, he showed flashes of brilliance, not least in the latter stages of the first set. In the eighth game, he laid the foundations for a break with a combination of finesse and firepower, following up a gorgeous angled drop volley with a brutal baseline barrage, and he later showcased his peerless defensive skills to telling effect, converting his second set point with a brilliant, lunging backhand winner.

More often, though, the key moments belonged to Sinner. Serving to level the contest at a set apiece, the Italian bludgeoned a forehand down the line to bring up two set points before producing a sumptuous cross-court forehand on the dead run. Later, having engineered a break with a pair of brilliant returns that he backed up with approach shots of devastating accuracy and power, he served out the third set with dead-eyed ruthlessness. 

And at the death, when Sinner found himself two sets to love up and 5-3 ahead in the fourth, a lead identical to the one he had held in Paris, he refused to buckle, refused to listen to his inner demons or countenance the notion that history might repeat itself. Not even when Alcaraz, fighting to cling on to his title, served himself out of a hole at 15-30, a success he greeted with a gladiatorial roar towards his box. 

Instead, with the championship in his crosshairs, Sinner was hard as nails, his focus unwavering as he carved out a 40-0 lead before sending down one last service winner to convert his second match point and seal a first win over Alcaraz since his title run at the 2023 China Open. It was the work of a man with a granite mentality.

“Today’s match I think was a match of moments, of just who was going to step up in the big moment and make something happen,” said Darren Cahill, who coaches Sinner alongside Simone Vagnozzi. “At Roland Garros it was Carlos, and today it was Jannik.

“He came here and played with a real purpose. I think you could see from the first match he played that he wasn’t carrying any baggage from Roland Garros. That’s not easy to do. It’s easy for us to say that in words, to put it to one side. But for the player to wipe it away and be able to come here with the mentality that he had, is 100% credit to him.”

Grand slam titles are rarely won without fortune smiling favourably somewhere along the way, and for Sinner that moment came in the fourth round when Grigor Dimitrov, leading by two sets to love, was forced to retire with a pectoral injury. The Italian suffered an injury scare of his own in that match, jarring his right elbow in an early fall, and he wore a protective sleeve on his arm for the remainder of the tournament. But Sinner has become inured to adversity in recent times. 

“I had a tough loss in Paris,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter how you win or you lose. You just have to understand what you did wrong and you have to accept the loss and keep working. This is why I hold this trophy here.”

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Iga Swiatek, a four-time French Open champion who has long regarded the lawns of the All England Club with deep suspicion, staged a Centre Court masterclass on Saturday to win the most one-sided Wimbledon final in more than a century.

The Polish eighth seed demolished Amanda Anisimova of the United States 6-0, 6-0 to win her first Wimbledon title, delivering a performance of such devastating authority and intensity that the whole thing was over in just 57 minutes.

Rarely has the long-running joke about Iga’s bakery – an allusion to the 24-year-old’s signature habit of doling out 6-0 and 6-1 sets, known in tennis parlance as bagels and breadsticks – felt more relevant, or more wildly inappropriate. For while the afternoon was first and foremost about the excellence of Swiatek, another abiding memory will be Anisimova’s tearful anguish at her inability to touch the heights she reached against Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals. 

Instead, the final act of the 23-year-old Floridian’s tournament was a mirror image of the first, Anisimova forced to taste the same bitter draught she had served Yulia Putintseva in a 6-0, 6-0 opening-round win. 

Anisimova was overwhelmed long before Swiatek drilled a final backhand beyond her to confirm a sixth grand slam title. She struggled to compose herself at the final changeover, and in the aftermath of defeat there were distant echoes of the late Jana Novotna’s tears after the 1993 final. Like the Duchess of Kent before her, the Princess of Wales offered words of consolation, telling her to keep her head high.

So she should, for Anisimova has been through much to reach this point. Her father Konstantin died suddenly before her 18th birthday in 2019, and two years ago she took a prolonged break from the game to look after her mental health. Anisimova broke down repeatedly as she looked up to her courtside box to thank her mother Olga – “the most selfless person I know” – for her support down the years. She lost the match, but will have won plenty of admirers. 

Ultimately, though, it was a day when Swiatek etched another indelible impression in the history books. She becomes the first Polish player to win a Wimbledon singles title, and the first to win a grand slam final without conceding a game since Steffi Graf eviscerated Natasha Zvereva at Roland Garros in 1988.

The last woman to claim a Centre Court whitewash in the final was Dorothea Lambert Chambers, who defeated fellow Briton Dora Boothby to win the fifth of her seven Wimbledon titles in 1911, while no player has dropped fewer than Swiatek’s 35 games en route to the title since Martina Navratilova in 1990. She is once again rubbing shoulders with giants.

The Pole’s achievement was all the more astonishing given that she had never previously advanced beyond the quarter-finals at the All England Club, and had not won a tournament since last summer’s French Open.    

“Who would have expected that?” mused Swiatek after joining Margaret Court and Monica Seles as only the third player to win each of her first six grand slam finals. 

“It’s a lot, you know, especially after a season with a lot of ups and downs and a lot of expectations from the outside that I didn’t really match. Winning Wimbledon is something that is just surreal. I feel like tennis keeps surprising me, and I keep surprising myself.”

Yet it wasn’t and wasn’t a surprise.

Notwithstanding last month’s run to the final of Bad Homburg, few would have picked out Swiatek as the winner beforehand. But she built her form steadily over the course of the fortnight, growing in stature with each round after an early wobble against Caty McNally, and carried the experience of five previous grand slam victories into the final. Her familiarity with the big occasion gave Swiatek an edge every bit as significant as her tactical nous, vastly improved serving and the peerless movement that, with the help of the experienced Belgian coach Wim Fisette, she has finally adapted to the unique demands of grass-court tennis. 

It was evident from the outset that Anisimova was a shadow of the devastating force that had toppled Sabalenka two days earlier. Faced by the might of the Belarusian world No 1’s huge serves and heavy groundstrokes, she had fought fire with fire; paralysed by nerves and still feeling the effects of that draining semi-final battle, she was barely able to muster a spark against Swiatek. 

Anisimova is blessed with one of the finest backhands in the women’s game, yet she began by ballooning a double-hander beyond the baseline and went on to miss a trio of forehands in the face of her opponent’s bold, aggressive returning. With two minutes gone, the tone was set.

Equipped with that early break and peerless when it comes to stretching a lead, Swiatek capitalised on a flurry of backhand errors from Anisimova to consolidate her advantage, before a double fault cost the American a second break. In short space, she would become the first player to concede the first set of a women’s final without winning a game since 1983, when Martina Navratilova swept through the opener against Andrea Jaeger in equally magisterial fashion.

It was a case of double jeopardy for Anisimova. On the one hand, she had to deal with her own malfunctioning service: she landed just 45% of her first serves, winning barely a quarter of those points, and fared little behind her second delivery, with a 34% success rate. On the other, she faced an opponent who was not only dominant on serve but also constantly dragging her into the corners, forcing her off balance and denying her time to land the kind of heavy baseline blows that had done for Sabalenka. 

“She came out playing very, very well, so all credit to her,” said Anisimova. “She was able to really play the game she wanted.”

The same could not be said of the misfiring American, who desperately needed to establish a foothold in the contest at the start of the second set but, repeatedly dragged deep into her forehand corner, instead committed another spate of forced and unforced errors. There would be no way back. Anisimova acknowledged she had been “a bit frozen with nerves”, but identified weariness as the greater obstacle.  

“I was nervous, but it wasn’t anything out of this world,” she said. “If anything, I was more excited to go out there and compete. I think I was just really fatigued. I could feel it also in my warm-up this morning. I had to take a break after every single rally out there in my warm-up… To be able to last two weeks in a grand slam is definitely something that you need to work a lot on.”

It is a discipline long since mastered by Swiatek. After a chequered season by her own exalted standards – however absurd such a statement might seem, given her semi-final finishes at the Australian and French Opens and at big events in Qatar, Indian Wells and Madrid – the Pole has largely flown under the radar at the All England Club. For a player who arrived at the previous three editions of the tournament as the freshly crowned Roland Garros champion, world No 1 and top seed, it has been an unaccustomed luxury – although she was not about to start ranking her grand slam achievements. 

“I think the fact it’s on grass, for sure it makes it more special and more unexpected, so for sure it feels like the emotions are bigger,” Swiatek admitted. “At Roland Garros, I know I can play well and I know I can show it every year. 

“Here, I wasn’t sure of that and I had to prove it to myself. For sure I’m not going to rank [my grand slam wins], because I have so much respect for the other tournaments. I worked really hard to win all the other slams, so there’s no point in choosing between them. 

“But this one and the US Open [in 2022] for sure feel better, because no one expected that. It wasn’t a relief, it was more just good tennis and working to make it happen.”  

Like the quality of her tennis, Swiatek’s work ethic has never been in doubt. But her Wimbledon triumph was also underpinned by hitherto largely unseen qualities: versatility, adaptability, a newfound willingness to slice and block. Patience allied with timely aggression; instinct and improvisation combined with the technical and tactical preparation on which she habitually thrives. Fun, even, for she was never a mere dirtballer or “robot”, as some have uncharitably labelled her. 

“Today I just wanted to enjoy the time that 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,” said Swiatek. “I just focused on that and I really had fun.”

Swiatek served a one-month ban late last year after unwittingly consuming a contaminated dose of melatonin, costing her the chance to defend points in Japan and China and the loss of the No 1 ranking. The International Tennis Integrity Agency deemed her transgression to be at the lowest end of the range for “no significant fault or negligence”, but Swiatek was deeply affected by the episode and that has, perhaps, been reflected in her tennis. 

Now the smile has returned to her face. She greeted victory with unconfined joy, falling on her back in disbelief before gambolling across Centre Court, and she celebrated exuberantly on retreating to the clubhouse balcony with the Venus Rosewater dish. Above all, her game is once more evolving. There will surely be more afternoons like this.

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Alcaraz has enjoyed a triumphant start to the summer, retaining his French Open title with an epic five-set win over Jannik Sinner before transitioning smoothly from Parisian clay to English grass to claim a second victory in three years at Queen’s Club. But a first-round meeting with Fabio Fognini was never likely to be a straightforward assignment, even allowing for the fact that the gifted Italian arrived at Wimbledon without a main-draw win at tour level this season, and Alcaraz was aware from the outset that it could be a challenging afternoon.

“I knew at the beginning it was going to be very difficult playing against Fabio,” said Alcaraz after claiming a 7-5, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 victory in blistering heat. “It doesn’t matter, his last year, his last tournaments, the talent that Fabio has is immense. In every match he can show his best tennis.” 

For four hours and 37 minutes, Fognini did just that, delving deep into the box of tricks that once earned him a place in the world’s top 10. He ran, he hustled, he harried. He flicked forehands to every corner of the court, often at full stretch and always with no discernible sign of effort. He knifed backhands loaded with slice and sidespin to Alcaraz’s forehand, forcing the Spaniard to pick the ball off his shoelaces. At one point he even turned southpaw, almost catching the champion off guard with a lunging left-handed forehand. 

Fognini is 38 now and he has indicated this will be his final season on tour. Wimbledon has never been the happiest of hunting grounds – this was his 15th visit and he has never been beyond round three – but what a swansong it was. So good, in fact, that the Italian said afterwards it might even have been the last match of his career. If so, he went out on a high.

That Alcaraz emerged unscathed was down to a combination of resilience, rapidly accumulated experience, and the sheer breadth of his options. He struggled with his serve, particularly early on, and made a whopping 62 unforced errors. But there are so many weapons in the Spaniard’s arsenal that even when one element of his game is misfiring – and at one point or another he stuttered in just about every area against Fognini – there is always something else to fall back on. Not least the extraordinary tenacity that also got him over the line against Sinner at Roland Garros earlier this month.

“I’m getting mature and I know how to deal with some situations,” said Alcaraz, who has been beaten just once in the 15 five-set matches he has contested so far in his career. “I always say that the champions always find a way. I really want to see myself in that [list] of champions. I really want to put myself like a champion that always finds a way to win. 

“I’ve been playing really, really tough matches the last year, the last year in this tournament. Just really proud that I always find a way. Today I did it, even though Fabio was playing great tennis. Just really proud to overcome the problem, to overcome the tough moments.”

Alcaraz’s epic win puts him in distinguished company. Roger Federer memorably fought back from two sets to love down against Alejandro Falla in 2010, while Pete Sampras held firm in the fifth set against Britain’s Barry Cowan in 2001. Going further back, Bjorn Borg pulled off several Houdini-like acts of escapology during his run of five straight titles, overcoming a two-set deficit against Mark Edmondson in 1977, recovering from two sets to one down against Victor Amaya the following year, and overturning a similar deficit against Vijay Amritraj in 1979. 

Even after winning two titles in SW19, Alcaraz has a way to go before matching that trio – between them, Federer, Sampras and Borg were crowned champions on no fewer than 19 occasions – but this will nonetheless go down as a worthy addition to the catalogue of great escapes. Amid all his achievements – five majors, seven Masters 1000 titles, youngest world No 1 in rankings history, the list goes on – it is easy to forget that the Spaniard is still a relative newcomer to the tournament. This year marks his fifth visit, and against Fognini he was opening the Centre Court programme as defending champion for only the second time. Understandably, there were nerves.

“It feels like it was the first time,” said Alcaraz, who has now won his past 19 matches. “It doesn’t matter, the winning streak that I have right now, that I’ve been playing great on grass, that I have been preparing really well the week before. Wimbledon is different. 

“I could feel today that I was really nervous at the beginning. Being the first match on Centre Court, it’s a huge privilege for me. Even though I played the first match last year, it feels [like] the first time. I just try to deal with the nerves the best way possible.”

Alcaraz can draw comfort from the knowledge that he is not alone. In weathering an early storm on the Centre Court grass, he has trodden a path familiar to many a past champion; few would be surprised if it led him to a third title.

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“Knowing that there is someone chasing me or I have a target on my back right now, I love it,” she said in Paris a few weeks ago. “I take it as a challenge. Every time I go out there, I feel like, OK, let’s go. Let’s see who is ready for the pressure moments.”

Such self-belief has been evident throughout Sabalenka’s reign at the top of the rankings. Since reclaiming top spot from Iga Swiatek last October, following an eight-week run at No 1 in late 2023, the 27-year-old has been a model of consistency, winning WTA 1000 titles in Miami and Madrid and reaching the finals of the Australian Open, Indian Wells, Stuttgart and Roland Garros. 

In the process, she has made a mockery of the notion that it is harder to hang on to top spot than to reach it. As Swiatek has struggled to hit the high notes with the regularity that kept her at No 1 for 125 weeks, Sabalenka has cemented her status. She goes into Wimbledon almost 4,000 ahead of second-placed Coco Gauff and, having reached the semi-finals in her past two appearances at the All England Club, a firm title favourite in the eyes of the oddsmakers.

But while Sabalenka’s setbacks have been few, they have been significant. Defeat to Madison Keys in Melbourne denied her a third straight Australian Open title, while an error-strewn loss to Gauff in Paris earlier this month leaves her still searching for a first grand slam title on a surface other than hard courts. 

Events in the French capital also laid bare the mental fault-lines in Sabalenka’s game. She has made good the damage caused by her ungracious remarks in the aftermath of that match, when she blamed defeat on the windy conditions, her own poor play and Gauff’s mishits, but the emotional volatility that sparked that outburst, a quality she has worked so hard to tame, cannot be solved simply with contrite remarks and social media snippets.     

“Usually after losing, I’m quite good,” said Sabalenka, who has apologised to Gauff publicly and privately, and last week performed a TikTok routine with the American after practising with her on Centre Court, apparently confirming the hatchet has been buried between the pair.

”I can accept losing, of course. I usually never struggle. It’s just this time it was super tough for me, I don’t know why. I wanted it badly and I just was upset that I couldn’t make it. This time, emotions took over me. 

“But on court, in the finals or semi-finals sometimes, I can get over-emotional and I would like to improve that, I would like to stay to the same mentality I have during the tournament. 

“I believe I get over-emotional at the last stages of the tournaments because I have this desire of winning. Sometimes it gets over me and I can lose control over my emotions. I would love to control that at the last stages of the tournament.”

It is a rare chink in the armour of a player whose withering power and growing variety seem tailor-made for Wimbledon, and it points to a deeper challenge for the Belarusian. For all Sabalenka’s insistence that she is comfortable with the external pressures that go with the No 1 ranking, the tiger within has been harder to tame. 

The weight of that burden was evident in her nervous start to the Australian Open final, and it surfaced again in Paris, where she became increasingly frustrated by her inability to capitalise on a blistering start. At a point in her career where even her closest rivals often struggle to touch her, Sabalenka may just be her own worst enemy.

The irony is glaringly apparent – even to the Belarusian, who has acknowledged the disparity between her on- and off-court persona. Always a bubbly presence when not in the heat of battle, Sabalenka arrived in SW19 fresh from a surprise defeat to former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in Berlin, but with a broad smile on her face. 

She has had plenty of fun since, including practices with Jannik Sinner, her male counterpart at the top of the rankings, and seven-time champion Novak Djokovic, who spent more than half an hour afterwards in deep conversation with her.

There was further merriment when Djokovic gatecrashed the final moments of Sabalenka’s  pre-tournament press conference.

“What do you think about hitting with me, how do you see my level?” she enquired jokingly.

“I think you have the potential, you’re a really talented player, you have nice strokes, good technique,” Djokovic replied without missing a beat. “Can I be honest? You’re lacking intensity on the court, you don’t have enough intensity. It’s too flat.”

The Serb’s irony occasioned much laughter, yet there was also truth in his jest. For all the comic mileage to be found in casting the impassioned Sabalenka as too laid back, there is a point at which  desire suffocates, where intensity spills over into something more destructive. Sabalenka has identified the problem; her ability to find a solution is likely to shape the outcome of her challenge for a first Wimbledon title.

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