Iga

Second alternate Alexandrova had sat on the sidelines all week but her patience proved worthwhile on Wednesday when Keys – unable to advance – withdrew just hours before her match with Rybakina.

The 30-year-old, who has enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2025, received the nod after fellow Russian and first option Mirra Andreeva, who is also competing in the doubles, declared she was not fit to play.

Alexandrova started impressively but squandered three break points before returning a forehand wide to hand the first break and a 5-4 lead to Rybakina.

The big-hitting Rybakina, sporting tape on her serving shoulder, served out the first set to love before breaking early in the second courtesy of a backhand error off her opponent’s racquet.

As Alexandrova’s serve faltered, Rybakina stepped up a gear and she doubled her advantage with a brutal forehand winner on break point, only to immediately lose one of her breaks when serving for the match.

Her struggle to get over the finish line continued, forced to save two break points in her next service game, before eventually sealing victory on her second match point as Alexandrova sent a backhand long.

“Each win gives you confidence,” said Rybakina, 26. “Hopefully I can continue.”

In the doubles, 2022 champions Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens confirmed their semi-final berth with a 6-3 6-3 victory over Italian pair Paolini and Sara Errani.

They join Hsieh Su-Wei and Jelena Ostapenko in advancing from the Martina Navratilova Group.

Trusting her natural ability, and the work she is doing with coach Wim Fissette to further improve, has also been the key to Swiatek turning around her season.

After a slump by her lofty standards at the start of the year, the former long-time world number one started the final major of the season as most people’s pick for the trophy.

The recently crowned Wimbledon champion, who won the US Open in 2022, underlined her credentials on the American hard courts with victory at the Cincinnati Open.

Swiatek was far from her best against 29th seed Kalinskaya, with a low serve percentage particularly damaging, and her relief was demonstrated by an animated celebration.

“I’m happy that I came back, kept being positive and figured it out,” Swiatek added.

In the other night-session match, Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia made light work of Greece’s Maria Sakkari after the pair took to court at 11:15pm local time.

Haddad Maia, seeded 18th, moved fast to wrap up a 6-1 6-2 victory, booking a last-16 match with Wimbledon runner-up Amanda Anisimova.

Elsewhere, eighth seed Amanda Anisimova made it safely through to the second round by beating Australian Kim Birrell 6-3 6-2.

American Anisimova, playing her first Grand Slam match since being beaten 6-0 6-0 by Swiatek in the Wimbledon final, hit 17 unforced errors in the opening set but improved markedly in the second.

She won the last five games of the match to set up a second-round meeting with another Australian, teenager Maya Joint.

However, her compatriot Danielle Collins made an early exit for the second consecutive year, winning just two games as she was beaten by Jacqueline Cristian of Romania.

World number 50 Cristian prevailed 6-2 6-0 against 2019 Australian Open semi-finalist Collins, who was hampered by a back injury.

Meanwhile, two-time champion Naomi Osaka – seeded 23rd – cruised past Belgium’s Greet Minnen in a 6-3 6-4 win.

Russian Diana Shnaider, the 20th seed, also went out after Germany’s Laura Siegemund secured a 7-6 (7-3) 2-6 6-3 victory over the 21-year-old.

If any of the four Slams could throw up a different winner, then recent history suggests it could happen at the US Open.

The slightly slower hard courts, humid conditions and its slot as the final major in a busy season have been contributing factors to six different champions in the past seven years.

Novak Djokovic is the only man to win it twice during that period. Even though he is now 38, the Serb remains the leading contender to stop defending champion Sinner and 2022 winner Alcaraz.

German third seed Alexander Zverev has not yet won a Grand Slam title despite his his pedigree, appearing to lack belief against the very best at the business end of majors.

In a bid to get over the line, the three-time major finalist recently enlisted the help of Toni Nadal – who coached his nephew Rafael to 16 of his 22 Grand Slam titles.

The trip to Nadal’s academy in Majorca came after Zverev’s first-round exit at Wimbledon, where he opened up about receiving psychological help to get “out of the hole” he was in.

“Of course to beat Alcaraz and Sinner is not easy but he has more chances to beat these two guys more than most others,” Nadal told BBC Sport.

“This is what I explained to him.

If the opening day had the air of an exhibition at certain times, the finals night immediately felt like business.

From the start it brought the feel of a traditional US Open showpiece event, with a patriotic rendition of the national anthem and a group of US Marine Corps standing with an unfurled Stars and Stripes flag providing pomp.

Many feel the overhaul has devalued the mixed doubles as a major title. Some are even putting asterisks next to the champions.

Given that, the stadium announcer outlining what winning the title would mean for each player’s Grand Slam résumé felt like an attempt to add legitimacy.

The opening semi-final was played at a ferocious intensity – not surprising given the will-to-win of the characters involved – while Ruud calling for a VAR-style check on a Pegula shot was another indication of how seriously it was being taken.

At 3-3 30-30, the umpire confirmed the American had not reached over the net – following fervent discussion between the opposing players – with Pegula and Draper using the momentum to win the opening set.

But Pegula’s clasp of her head after they blew an 8-4 lead in the first-to-10 match tie-break summed up their bitter disappointment at missing a shot for the trophy.

Unsurprisingly, Errani and Vavassori were also seriously pumped up.

The duo mirroring Hulk Hogan-style underarm bicep flexes after winning their semi-final was one of the defining images.

While the energy on court ramped up, the emphasis on providing entertainment for those watching in the stands remained.

A pair of DJs were perched behind courtside decks, tasked with whipping up the crowd through a New York-inspired playlist including Jay-Z, Cyndi Lauper and the Friends theme tune, while the familiar sight of Celeb Cam and Dance Cam added to the party atmosphere.

Fashion icon Anna Wintour, who recently stepped back from her role as Vogue editor-in-chief, added further star-dust in a near-full capacity crowd.

Thousands stayed late until the end and were rewarded with a fine finale to a transformative tournament which looks destined to stay in the coming years.

World number three Iga Swiatek powered to a straight-set win over Elena Rybakina to reach the final of the Cincinnati Open where she will face Jasmine Paolini.

Their meeting will be a repeat of last year’s French Open final – won by Poland’s Swiatek in dominant fashion.

Swiatek, the reigning Wimbledon champion, swept past Kazakhstan’s Rybakina 7-5 6-3 on Sunday to reach her first Cincinnati showpiece.

Rybakina – who beat world number one Aryna Sabalenka in the quarter-finals – started brightly but failed to exploit an early break in the first set before Swiatek took control.

“That was a tough match,” said Swiatek. “At the beginning it was pretty crazy, we played so fast that sometimes we couldn’t even run to the second ball.

“I was there to play with intensity and good quality and I am super happy with the performance.

“It will be super tough in the final. I will have to prepare tactically but I will focus on myself and try to continue the work I have been doing.”

Italy’s Paolini battled past Russian Veronika Kudermetova in her semi-final 6-3 6-7 (2-7) 6-3.

Paolini served for the match in the second set only to see her advantage slip away, but the story of the encounter was Kudermetova’s tally of 75 unforced errors.

The final takes place on Monday night.

Emma Raducanu brushed aside Olga Danilovic at the Cincinnati Open to make a confident start with her new coach.

The British number one has added Rafael Nadal’s former coach Francis Roig to her team on a full-time basis as she prepares for the upcoming US Open.

And the surprise 2021 champion in New York cruised to a 6-3 6-2 win in her first match since the Spaniard came aboard.

Danilovic beat British number three Katie Boulter in the first round while Raducanu had a bye, and the Serbian number one broke Raducanu to love in the first game of Saturday’s match.

After four breaks of serve between the pair in the opening five games, Raducanu came from 30-0 down to grab another and make it 5-3.

The 22-year-old won seven points in a row to bring up three set points and took the first with an ace.

In the second set, Raducanu drew errors from her 24-year-old opponent and eventually earned a break for 3-2.

From that point the world number 39, ranked four spots higher than Danilovic, did not drop another game as she booked her spot in the third round in Ohio.

Raducanu is playing in the WTA 1,000 event for the first time since 2022 and could next face world number one Aryna Sabalenka, against whom she suffered a narrow Wimbledon defeat last month.

Earlier, Poland’s Iga Swiatek eased through to the last 32 as the Wimbledon champion claimed a 6-1 6-4 win over Russian Anastasia Potapova.

Australian Open champion Madison Keys of the United States saved two match points before beating Germany’s Eva Lys 1-6 6-3 7-6 (7-1).

Sin-caraz here to stay

The level of shot-making and athleticism produced by Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz as their fast-developing rivalry continued in the men’s singles final was a joy to behold.

Except, perhaps, if you’re one of the guys trying to usurp them. The pair look set to maintain a stranglehold on the men’s game for the foreseeable future.

Certainly it will take something extraordinary for somebody to prevent Sinner or Alcaraz winning the US Open and sweeping the Grand Slams for the second successive season.

Swiatek joins all-court greats

Few would have picked Iga Swiatek pre-tournament as their women’s champion.

But the 24-year-old Pole has now won majors on all the surfaces after needing just 57 minutes to beat Amanda Anisimova in a scarcely believable 6-0 6-0 win.

Despite a difficult year where she dropped down the rankings, Swiatek has reasserted some of her authority after becoming the youngest woman since Serena Williams in 2002 to win Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces.

Time catching up with Djokovic

In truth, this has been apparent for a while. Novak Djokovic has not won a major title since the 2023 US Open and it was widely accepted Wimbledon represented his best chance of breaking the Sinner-Alcaraz duopoly.

The 38-year-old Serb continues to defy the ageing process but losing to Sinner in the semi-finals – ending his bid for a standalone record 25th major title – was another indication he doesn’t have enough in the tank to match the young guns.

Humans versus technology

The ongoing topic of humans being made redundant by technology spilled over into Wimbledon.

The All England Club replaced line judges with an electronic line-calling system, but had to apologise after the technology was turned off in error and missed three calls in one game.

LONDON — Iga Swiatek won her first Wimbledon championship with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Amanda Anisimova on Saturday in the first women’s final at the tournament in 114 years in which one player failed to claim a single game.

Swiatek’s victory on a sunny, breezy afternoon at Centre Court took just 57 minutes and gave Swiatek her sixth Grand Slam title overall. She is now 6-0 in major title matches.

The 24-year-old from Poland finished with a 55-24 edge in total points and accumulated that despite needing to produce merely 10 winners. Anisimova was shaky from the start and made 28 unforced errors.

Swiatek already owned four trophies from the French Open’s red clay and one from the U.S. Open’s hard courts, but this is the first title of her professional career at any grass-court tournament. And it ended a long-for-her drought: Swiatek last won a trophy anywhere more than a year ago, at Roland-Garros in June 2024.

Catherine, the Princess of Wales, was sitting in the Royal Box on Saturday and took part in the on-court ceremony afterward.

Swiatek is the eighth consecutive first-time women’s champion at Wimbledon, but her triumph stands out from the others because it came in a stunningly dominant performance against Anisimova, a 23-year-old American who was participating in her first final at a major.

Anisimova eliminated No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals but never looked like she was the same player Saturday. When it was over, while Swiatek climbed into the stands to celebrate with her team, Anisimova sat on the sideline in tears.

All the way back in 1911, Dorothea Lambert Chambers was a 6-0, 6-0 winner against Dora Boothby.

Swiatek never had been past the quarterfinals of the All England Club and her only other final on the slick surface came when she was the runner-up at a tuneup event in Germany right before Wimbledon began.

Swiatek spent most of 2022, 2023 and 2024 at No. 1 in the WTA rankings but was seeded No. 8 at Wimbledon after going more than a year without claiming a title anywhere. She served a one-month doping ban last year after failing an out-of-competition drug test; an investigation determined she was inadvertently exposed to a contaminated medical product used for trouble sleeping and jet lag.

Anisimova, who was born in New Jersey and grew up in Florida, was a semifinalist at age 17 at the 2019 French Open.

She took time away from the tour a little more than two years ago because of burnout. A year ago, she tried to qualify for Wimbledon, because her ranking of 189th was too low to get into the field automatically, but lost in the preliminary event.

Anisimova will break into the top 10 in the rankings for the first time next week.

Fendrich writes for the Associated Press.

Swiatek, a former world No.1, did not drop a game in the women’s singles final to claim her sixth Grand Slam title.

Iga Swiatek demolished Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in the most one-sided women’s Wimbledon final for 114 years to seal her sixth Grand Slam.

The Polish eighth seed, who has now won all six major finals in which she has competed, was in charge from the first point and wrapped up victory in just 57 minutes on Saturday.

It is the first time a woman has won a final at Wimbledon without dropping a game since 1911.

And Swiatek, 24, is just the second player in the Open era to win a major title without losing a game in the final after Steffi Graf beat Natalia Zvereva at the 1988 French Open.

Swiatek, who reached the final of the grass-court tournament at Bad Homburg two weeks ago, has looked increasingly strong while the top seeds tumbled at the All England Club.

She lost just one set in her run to the final.

But US 13th-seed Anisimova was expected to prove a stern test after ousting world number one Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals.

Anisimova made a nervous start in hot conditions on Centre Court.

She was broken in the first game, soon slipping 2-0 behind, and the signs looked ominous.

She appeared to have found her feet in her next service game, but the tenacious Swiatek refused to give ground and recovered to move 3-0 ahead when Anisimova double-faulted.

At 4-0 down, Anisimova was facing a first-set wipe-out, but she was powerless to halt the rampant Swiatek, who sealed the first set 6-0 in just 25 minutes.

The American won just six points on her serve in the first set and committed 14 unforced errors.

An increasingly desperate Anisimova could not stem the tide in the second set, double-faulting again in the third game to give her opponent game point and then netting a backhand.

The crowd got behind her, but to no avail as Swiatek kept up her level, serving out to win and celebrating before consoling her devastated opponent.

The distraught Anisimova left the court briefly before returning for the trophy presentation.

Swiatek is Wimbledon’s eighth consecutive first-time women’s champion since Serena Williams won her seventh and final title at the All England Club in 2016.

If Swiatek had not already proved she should be ranked among the greats of the game, she has certainly done so now.

Mastering a surface considered her weakest – even though she won the Wimbledon junior title in 2018 – has added further credence to her case.

Swiatek has become the youngest woman since 23-time champion Serena Williams in 2002 to win Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces.

A sixth major takes her clear of Maria Sharapova and Martina Hingis, with only a total of 10 women now having won more in the Open era.

Swiatek became known as the ‘Queen of Clay’ after winning four French Open titles in five years, while her two-year reign as the world number one – ended by Aryna Sabalenka last year – was underpinned by consistent success on the hard courts.

Grass was the surface she had not cracked.

Before this triumph, Swiatek had made the second week at the All England Club only once, when she reached the quarter-finals in 2023.

Losing in this year’s Roland Garros semi-finals – early by her previous standards – meant she had longer to prepare on the surface, helping her quickly readjust improve her confidence and game.

Anisimova’s struggles meant she was not fully tested. Nevertheless, the weight and depth of Swiatek’s ball provided constant pressure which her opponent could not deal with.

Both players are understandably going to be nervous coming into the match – it’s the Wimbledon final! The outcome will likely come down to who manages the occasion better.

Anisimova was pretty nervous in her quarter-final win against Anastasia Pavyluchenkova, to the point where she kept dropping to the floor on her haunches in the last couple of games – even when it wasn’t match point.

It was an illustration of the feeling of desperation she was facing as she edged closer to victory.

We saw similar reactions a few times early on in the semi-final against Aryna Sabalenka too but she managed to settle more as the match went on.

Swiatek, having won majors and having been the world number one for such a long time, has the edge in terms of experience – that absolutely counts for a lot.

But Anisimova has nothing to lose. Of course she is desperate to win the Wimbledon final, but at the start of the fortnight she would never have thought she would actually be here in the championship match.

She can close her eyes in the final and have a swing – which fits best into what she does. This circumstances allows her to be more dangerous.

So she can go out there and play freely, whereas I think Swiatek might feel extra pressure.

Swiatek has never won the singles title here, she’s the higher ranked and many people will expect her to lift the trophy.

I think being the underdog favours Anisimova and it fits in well with her aggressive game style.

Bencic was not worried about her sleep being broken by her 14-month-old daughter, Bella, who is with her in London.

“I don’t adjust anything, I’m just being a mum at home. When she cries in the night, I’ll wake up,” said Bencic, who is seeking to become the first mother to win a Wimbledon singles title in 45 years.

“It’s not something that’s going to affect me for my [match].”

Earlier during Wimbledon, she explained: “I see myself as a mum first, and then tennis player. My priorities are clearly with my family.”

It has been nearly six years since Bencic last reached the final four of a Grand Slam, ultimately losing in straight sets to Bianca Andreescu in the 2019 US Open semi-finals.

Having been on maternity leave from September 2023 to October 2024, she said she has been “surprised” by how quickly the positive results have come.

Bencic started the year ranked 489th in the world and is now projected to break back into the world’s top 20 after Wimbledon. Success this year has also included winning the Abu Dhabi WTA 500 title in February.

She said motherhood has had a positive impact on her approach to being a professional player, making her “more relaxed” and ensuring she has less time to think about tennis.