Wimbledon semi-finals: Anisimova stuns Sabalenka, books Swiatek showdown

At Wimbledon this fortnight, Amanda Anisimova has been one powerful messenger.

Six years after she reached the Roland-Garros semi-finals as a 17-year-old sensation, Anisimova has punched her ticket to a maiden Grand Slam final by defeating world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in a thrilling clash on Thursday.

In May 2023, Anisimova announced she was going to take an indefinite break from tennis, citing burnout and mental health concerns.

“It’s become unbearable being at tennis tournaments. At this point my priority is my mental well-being and taking a break for some time. I’ve worked as hard as I could to push through it,” wrote the then 21-year-old Anisimova in a post on social media.

She ended up taking eight months off, during which she spent a semester at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, developed her passion for art and sold her pieces for charity, and did her best to live a normal life away from the professional tennis circuit.

Anisimova returned to the tour at the start of 2024, armed with fresh perspective and the belief that she could resurrect her career, on her own terms.

Less than 18 months later, the 23-year-old has stormed into the Wimbledon final, where she will take on five-time major champion Iga Swiatek, who eased past Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-0 later on Centre Court.

“I think it goes to show that it is possible. I think that's a really special message that I think I've been able to show because when I took my break, a lot of people told me that you would never make it to the top again if you take so much time away from the game,” said Anisimova after her two-hour 37-minute win over Sabalenka.

“That was a little hard to digest because I did want to come back and still achieve a lot and win a Grand Slam one day.

“Just me being able to prove that you can get back to the top if you prioritise yourself, that's been incredibly special to me. It means a lot.”

Anisimova extended her head-to-head record lead over Sabalenka to 6-3 and is the youngest American women's singles finalist at Wimbledon since Serena Williams in 2004.

Anisimova couldn’t serve out the match at 5-3 in the decider, as Sabalenka broke her to stay alive in the contest. But the top seed’s comeback attempt was short-lived and Anisimova hit right back, sealing the deal with her 30th winner of the match.

“It was such a tough match and a little bit of a roller coaster there,” she said.

“I struggled to hold my serve in the second set. It just goes to show when you miss a crucial point or lose a game, the margins are so slim, especially when you're playing the No.1 in the world.

“She's such a tough player. I knew that I had to really dig deep and make as little mistakes as possible. It's really hard trying to have to play perfect tennis because that's the only way to really get the win, but I feel like we really fought out there today.”

Iga breaks new ground

Swiatek may have spent just 72 minutes in her maiden Wimbledon semi-final against Bencic on Thursday, but the Pole’s journey to her first final at the All England Club has been many years in the making.

A four-time Roland-Garros champion and one-time US Open winner, Swiatek never felt comfortable on the grass, despite being a junior Wimbledon champion.

This season has been different though. The former world No.1 was having a sub-par campaign – by her own stratospheric standards – and hadn’t made a final since Roland-Garros 2024 before she finally ended that drought on grass in Bad Homburg ahead of these Championships.

Swiatek, seeded No.8 at Wimbledon, took confidence from reaching her first grass-court final and impressively dropped just one set en route to Saturday’s championship decider.

“Honestly, I never even dreamt that it’s going to be possible for me to play in the final,” the 24-year-old Swiatek.

“So I’m just super excited and just proud of myself. I don’t know, tennis keeps surprising me.

“I thought lived through everything, even though I’m young, I thought I experienced everything on the court but yeah, I didn’t experience playing well on grass. That’s the first time and I’m just super excited and enjoying it.

“I feel like I improved my movement, I’m serving really well and I feel really confident. So I’m just going for it and for sure it’s working, so I’ll keep doing that.”

Swiatek takes a perfect 5-0 record in Grand Slam finals into her clash with Anisimova, who will be facing the Pole for the first time since their junior days.

Bencic’s Wimbledon run came to an abrupt end but the Swiss has plenty to be proud of after reaching the semi-finals at SW19 for the first time.

The Olympic gold medallist returned from maternity leave last fall, started the year ranked 489 in the world and will break the top 20 when the new rankings are released on Monday.

She missed Roland-Garros last month due to an arm injury and arrived at Wimbledon having played just one match since Rome.

That didn’t stop Bencic from dismissing the likes of No.18 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova and No.7 seed Mirra Andreeva to reach the second major semi-final of her career.

‘She was braver than me’

Meanwhile, Sabalenka joked with reporters after the match, assuring them there would be no repeat of her post-loss press conference at Roland-Garros, in which she refused to give credit to Coco Gauff, who defeated her in the final.

The three-time Grand Slam champion admitted she wasn’t sharp on return against Anisimova, and paid tribute to her opponent’s courageousness.

“I have to say that she was more brave today,” said Sabalenka of the American.

“Maybe when I was just trying to stay in the point, she was playing more aggressive. Sometimes I was just stopping my arms, making like mistakes which I shouldn't be making.

“I think I should have been a little bit more brave today and remember that I'm on the top of the ranking, and I can do that. I think at some point at the match I forgot about that.”

‘Huge hopes’

Sabalenka has already qualified for the WTA Finals in Riyadh, thanks to her incredible consistency so far in 2025. The world No.1 has won three titles, from seven finals reached this campaign, and says she’ll use her losses as fuel for the future.

“I think even though I lost a lot of finals, I lost tough matches at the Slams this year, I still think that the consistency I was able to bring till this moment, it's impressive,” she said.

“Still a lot of things to be proud of. This experience shows that next year I'm only hungrier and angrier. These tough defeats help me to come back much stronger.

‘I have huge hopes for the next year.”