London, July 10 (IANS) Amanda Anisimova of the United States produced the performance of her career, toppling top seed Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to reach her first-ever Grand Slam final at Wimbledon 2025 here on Thursday.

The 23-year-old American, seeded No. 13, held her nerve in a gripping two-hour, 36-minute battle in the women’s singles semifinals to notch her sixth career win over a Top 5 opponent—and her first against World No. 1.

She has thus become the first American player since Serena Williams in 2019 to reach the ladies’ singles final.

With this victory, Anisimova also extended her strong record against Sabalenka to 6-3, underlining her comfort in the high-pressure moments of this increasingly intense rivalry. Her reward is a place in the Wimbledon final, making her the first player born in the 21st century to achieve the feat at SW19.

Fellow 2000s-born Iga Świątek has a chance to join her if she beats Belinda Bencic in the second semifinal to be played later in the day.

Anisimova’s rise to this point hasn’t followed a straight line. A teenage prodigy who broke through to the French Open semifinals at just 17 in 2019, she took a seven-month break in 2023 to prioritise her mental health. This time last year, she was ranked No. 189 and failed to qualify for Wimbledon, losing to Eva Lys in the preliminaries.

But her comeback since has been nothing short of remarkable. She surged into the Top 20 with a runner-up finish at the WTA 1000 event in Toronto last August, followed by a breakthrough WTA 1000 title in Doha earlier this year. With this win at Wimbledon, Anisimova is now assured of a Top 10 debut when the new rankings are released next week.

The semifinal appearance also marks a long-awaited return to the sharp end of a major. The six-year, 34-day gap between her first and second Grand Slam semifinal is the fourth-longest in the Open Era, behind only Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, Natasha Zvereva, and Lori McNeil. Interestingly, Bencic—her potential opponent in the final—sits just behind with a gap of over five years between major semifinal appearances.

–IANS

hs/bsk/