Wimbledon, England – Just hours after winning his fourth title at the French Open last June, Iga Sweet was asked by a reporter about the upcoming grass season.
With the launch of Wimbledon just a few weeks away, there were only a few opportunities to play in the surface warm-up event. Swiatek didn’t seem to be worried.
“If I had lost here early, I would probably be able to play two more weeks with Grass and become a better Grass player,” Swiatek said of the facts. “But if I had to choose, I’m not going to give up on it because I love playing with clay.”
Swiatek then chose to skip all the grass tournaments and focus on rest and recovery after a long clay season. She lost in the third round at the All England Club.
However, this year, Swiatek lost early with her beloved Roland Garros. She was angry at world number one Arena Sabalenka in the semi-finals, and ended her dream in search of a fourth consecutive major title. Swiatek, involuntarily, has increased the time to prepare for the grass.
Her words a year ago turned out to be correct. The more weeks on the surface helped her become a better grass player. But even she could not have predicted how good she was, and how dominant she would be. Or how she thrives without the overwhelming attention and pressure she faced in the French Open.
And she certainly couldn’t speculate that she would become the 2025 Wimbledon champion. But that was exactly what happened on Saturday, winning within an hour at No. 13 Seeda Manda Animova, following an impressive two weeks and an incredible 6-0, 6-0 victory.
“To be honest, I didn’t dream of (this) dream because it was too far for me,” Swiatek told the court shortly after securing the title. “After winning the slams before, I feel like an already experienced player, but I wasn’t really expecting this.”
The 24-year-old Swiatek has become the eighth female and only active WTA player to win six Grand Slam titles and win major titles on all three surfaces. She is also the youngest to do so since Martina Hingis in 2003. She’s as surprised as anyone who managed to do that.
Ironically, Swiatek’s high point While at Wimbledon as a junior, she won the women’s singles title in 2018.
It was her only slam title as a junior and she was pretty much unmanageable while she was running. But even a brief summary on Wimbledon’s website after a 6-4, 6-2 victory in the finals said “clay remains her favourable surface.”
Sure enough, clay was where Swiatek initially discovered his most successful professionally. She reached the first WTA final on the surface and then astonished the tennis world by winning the title at the 2020 French Open, which lagged behind the 2020 pandemic as a relatively unknown at the unseeded 19-year-old.
Many were new to Swiatek and her game before the tournament, but she made a considerable impression while running.
“The way she’s playing now would be hard to imagine that she wouldn’t win a half-dozen majors,” said John McEnroe, a seven-time major champion and tennis analyst, after the victory. “It’s incredible.”
The clay remained her bread and butter, but she also emerged as a strong hardcourt player. She won her first title on the surface of Adelaide, a 500-level event, just months after her breakthrough in Paris. She recorded a historic 37-game winning streak in the spring of 2022. This includes titles from the Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and French Open, and first won the world No. 1 rankings in April of that year, following Ashley Bertie’s unexpected retirement. Her winning streak was stopped in the third round of Wimbledon, but she had opened the US by the end of the year.
Swiatek held the top rankings for 75 weeks. After failing to defend her US open title in 2023, she briefly fell to second place, with Sabalenka at number one, but recovered it just eight weeks later. The 2024 season was aimed at being equally dominant for Swiatek.
“She’s number one. I think she’s really good on every asset in the game,” Sabalenka said after losing to her in the Italian Open Finals last year.
But after winding up her fifth major trophy, Swiatek struggled by standard anyway, fourth at Roland Garros. A clear favourite of the 2024 Olympics (held at Roland Garros), Swiatek left in bronze after getting upset in the semi-finals. She later fell to the quarterfinals of the US Open. She parted ways with longtime coach Thomas Wiktrowski and soon began working with Wim Fissett. Swiatek was suspended for a month in November after testing positive for a banned substance.
At the time, for almost forever for a player of her caliber – she hadn’t won another title. At the 2025 French Open, all eyes were on her to see if she could turn things around. When she didn’t, her ranking fell to a spectacular number 8.
It seems unlikely that Wimbledon and grass will be much better as she hasn’t done well on the surface or the tournament.
Grass is the shortest part of the annual tennis calendar, with Sweet winning the French Open about three weeks before Wimbledon’s launch. It left a very short window for grass preparation.
“I think the toughest transition is grass,” said 18-time major champion and ESPN analyst Chris Ebert, ahead of Wimbledon. “You’re a red clay (on) with you having a five-week tournament. You can really get used to playing with clay by the time the French opens arrives, but Wimbledon is really difficult, especially for players who get along well with the French.”
Evert mentioned Coco Gauff as a recent example. The 2025 French Open champion returned to play after a whirlwind media tour for one warm-up tournament in Berlin and lost in the opening match. She was then upset in her first round at Wimbledon.
In addition to the quick turnaround, the clay and grass surfaces are fundamentally different. Even some of the most experienced veterans struggle with the transition between the two.
“These two surfaces, red clay and grass, are polar and require a lot of adjustments,” Evert added. “The courts are different. The positioning is different. You need to shorten the stroke. You need to always move to the net if possible. There is a lot of clay that you need to think about and adjust.”
Before this year, Swiatek’s best result at Wimbledon was in the quarterfinals in 2023. In her limited grass tournament appearances during that time, she played in three main draws outside of Wimbledon after becoming a pro.
But even one match for a year, one tournament can change everything. Swiatek said she is no longer focused on the points and her rankings following the French open exit, and she says she will almost immediately turn her attention to the grass.
“Hopefully we’ll have a pretty small preseason in grass, because it’s always pretty difficult to have it, especially when you want to be a little home,” Swiatek said last month. “But I don’t think I need to go home now, so I might go somewhere in Europe and practice.”
SwiaTek returned to the competition at Bad Homburg in less than three weeks. She won two major champion Victoria Azarenka in 16 rounds and reached the first-ever grass final with a 6-1, 6-3 victory in the semi-finals at 2024 Wimbledon finalist Jasmine Palini. She eventually lost the title to Jessica Pegra, but she arrived at the All-England club with momentum on her side, as she told reporters the next day “be confident.”
However, there were far fewer Weirtech at Wimbledon than the French Open, and Sabalenka was an overwhelming favourite to win. It all seemed to suit Swiatek.
Many of her top-ranked peers, including No. 2 Gauff and No. 3 Pegula, fell early in the upset opening round, but Swiatek was mostly controlled and appeared to improve in every match. On her way to the finals, she dropped one set (to America’s Kathy McNally, who won the Junior French Open Doubles title in 2018), propelled by her strong serve, losing six service games in her first six games. She routed Belinda Bensik 6-2, 6-0 in the semi-finals on Thursday.
“I definitely felt like she was on fire,” Bensik later said. “Of course I watched the game again and saw that I was able to do it differently from my team, but I might have had to play the absolute best tennis in my life.
Strawberry and pasta 🍓@igga_swiateMy favourite meal is an interesting meal#wimbledon pic.twitter.com/fjndwrbe8x
– Wimbledon (@wimbledon) July 5, 2025
Along the way, Swiatek seemed to be having fun. She went viral due to her pasta and strawberry dishes and her affinity for Wimbledon towels. She hilariously discovered as many storage shelves as possible throughout the tournament after the match.
On Saturday of the final, she had the most dominant performance ever. Swiatek broke Anisimova in the opening game, but there was little doubt for the rest of the road. She scored her first set in 25 minutes, holding Anishimoba to just nine points. It was just the second major female final in the open era, featuring a score of 6-0 and 6-0. It only happened previously in Wimbledon in 1911.
When asked after the match by ESPN’s Mary Joe Fernandez to explain what she just achieved, Sweet said she didn’t think she could.
Are you coming to Wimbledon for tennis? perhaps.
Would you like to come to Wimbledon and add it to your towel collection? absolutely.Iga, we understand. We get it. 😉#wimbledon pic.twitter.com/5scnjpzadi
– Wimbledon (@wimbledon) July 3, 2025
“I was really competing for the whole two weeks,” Swiatek said. “No matter what happened before the season, I trusted the process and what the coach wanted to do with the grass, so everything I wanted to do on the court was very easy.
“I think it was a great help and I just leaned over it. I had a lot of confidence in every match and this happened. So it’s all pretty surreal and crazy. I can’t explain it, but I’m so happy and I’m certainly enjoying the next day.”
The total 35 games lost in the tournament was the fewest women’s champions at Wimbledon since Martinana Bratilova in 1990.
After emotional With Anishimoba holding her online at the conclusion of the match, Sweet ran to her box and celebrated with her team. Despite the score and biased contest, Swiatek looked incredible. When she returned to court before the trophy ceremony, she emphasized her head when she was placed in her hand while staring at the person inside the box.
With the Wimbledon Trophy, Swiatek is now just one of the main titles of Venus Williams, among the most active players on the WTA Tour. She is currently returning to third place in her latest rankings.
Although she hadn’t been a lot of a factor at Wimbledon before, Swiatek has found a way to win the most unlikely title at a time of her younger career. She has not yet called herself a herbivore expert on Saturday, admitting that she doesn’t know what to expect from the final.
“I didn’t know if there was another opportunity due to my previous (Wimbledon) results, so I wanted to enjoy the moment,” Swiatek told Fernandez. “I still felt like an underdog. I was on Centre Court and really wanted to be immersed in every minute of my already grateful for what I did in this tournament, but on the other hand I did more and got brave.”
She may have been under the radar in the tournament, but she was a little unsure of herself, but it never happens again. Also, she won’t get a discount in any tournament in the near future. Throughout the two weeks she left little doubts about her abilities and her willingness to adapt and grow as a player, regardless of the surface. In doing so, she solidified her position as all the face player and regained her best position in the game. Swiatek is now on top of the tennis world again.
Just five weeks ago, Swiatek disappointed and disappointed Roland Garros. She hadn’t won the title. Questions swirled about her future and her inability to win a recent title.
However, on Saturday she stood on the centre court with over 14,000 fans and admiration eyes of Princess Welsh Catherine, so she wondered whether it was one of the best things that could have happened to her career. No one knows what’s coming next for Swiatek, but on Saturday, everything felt right for her.
“I really don’t care what happens,” Swiatek said of the rest of the season. “It’s hard to compare (this title) to other Grand Slams, but yeah, I feel I’m going to enjoy it and enjoy the way I’ve felt on the court over the past few weeks, especially when I got back home.
“So, leave me alone, let me work and focus on myself. I hope they prove to everyone that they need to perform as great as they do today.”
