WIMBLEDON – A light breeze. Sunshine in abundance.

It was a beautiful day for an outing in London, perhaps a picnic by the Thames or a long, leisurely Saturday stroll through Kew Gardens.

A beautiful day, too, for a Wimbledon final, but the match did not meet the moment as Iga Swiatek, long tennis’s baker in chief, double-bageled American Amanda Anisimova to win her first Wimbledon women’s title.

It required just 57 minutes: not much value for money considering the price and scarcity of Wimbledon tickets. It was the first 6-0, 6-0 victory in a major final since Steffi Graf’s demolition of Natasha Zvereva at the 1988 French Open; the first 6-0, 6-0 victory in a Wimbledon singles final since the pre-war era and we’re talking about World War I, not World War II.

If you’re going to lose big, you might as well make history, but that is surely too flippant. It was a struggle to see the lighter side on Saturday as you sat in Centre Court watching the gifted Anisimova, who has been through so much in her 23 years, struggle unremittingly with nerves, missing again and again (and again). Sports is entertainment after all, and this was often as much fun as watching a youngster forget their lines in a school play.

It was very tempting to avert the gaze no matter how lovely the stretch of lawn below, but that would have been a disservice to Swiatek, who was rising to the occasion as much as Anisimova was sinking beneath the weight of it.

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