Iga Swiatek wins Wimbledon after a difficult year that included a doping case and a title drought

Iga Swiatek

For weeks while back home in Warsaw last year, Iga Swiatek hung out with friends and made new ones, but didn’t dare tell them about a doping case that was hanging over her.

“Obviously, in the back of my mind,” she said Saturday evening at the All England Club, “I had this thing.”

There was more going on, too, and she only opened up to her family and her team. A coaching change. A long-for-her title drought. A ranking drop. Her grandfather’s passing.

“It all (happened) together,” Swiatek said. “It wasn’t easy.”

And so, in some ways, the Wimbledon championship Swiatek claimed Saturday with a 6-0, 6-0 victory — yes, read that score again — in 57 minutes over Amanda Anisimova could be viewed as more than merely a significant on-court result.

Swiatek’s the youngest since Serena Williams with majors on 3 surfaces

It mattered, of course, that she finally conquered grass courts, in general, and that venue, in particular. That the 24-year-old from Poland became the youngest woman with at least on major trophy on all three surfaces since 2002, when Serena Williams did it at age 20. That Swiatek now needs only an Australian Open title to complete a career Grand Slam.

In the bigger picture, though, this triumph followed a difficult 12-plus months and provided the following takeaway, in Swiatek’s words: “The lesson is just that even when you feel like you’re not on a good path, you can always get back to it if you put enough effort and you have good people around you.”

There was a not-long-ago stretch in which she was considered far-and-away the best in women’s tennis.

“She’s an unbelievable player,” Anisimova said.

Swiatek adds Wimbledon to 4 French Open titles, 1 at the U.S. Open

Swiatek held the No. 1 ranking for most of the past three seasons. She put together a 37-match winning streak in 2022 that included six tournament titles until it ended — where else? — at Wimbledon.

She won five Grand Slam titles, four on the red clay at the French Open and one on the hard courts at the U.S. Open, and established herself as a bona fide star.

Except there was always the matter of what went on when she played on grass. Zero titles. Zero finals. One quarterfinal run at the All England Club.

The questions kept arising, from herself and from others. Then those doubts spread to other events and other surfaces.

She left the 2024 Olympics, held at Roland-Garros, with a bronze medal after losing in the semifinals. She departed Wimbledon last year in the third round, the U.S. Open in the quarterfinals. She exited the French Open last month in the semifinals, ending her bid for a fourth consecutive championship there.

In all, Swiatek went more than a year without reaching a final anywhere.

Swiatek’s doping ban weighed on her

Then there was the matter of a one-month doping ban she accepted after failing an out-of-competition drug test. The International Tennis Integrity Agency accepted her explanation that the result was unintentional and caused by the contamination of a non-prescription medication she was taking for issues with jet lag and sleeping. HOWARD FENDRICH, LONDON, MDT/AP