Tough to digest double bagel, but Anisimova takes positives despite Wimbledon final nightmare

LONDON :There were two so-called 'double bagels' at this year's Wimbledon - the term used to describe a match ending 6-0 6-0 - and American Amanda Anisimova starred in both.

The first one launched the 23-year-old on the path to her first Grand Slam final as she thrashed Yulia Putintseva.

Sadly for her, she was on the receiving end of the second and it came at the worst possible time.

In front of a sweltering Centre Court crowd and millions of television viewers in Saturday's final, her hopes of winning the title evaporated in 57 cruel minutes as she was put through the wringer by Poland's Iga Swiatek.

The only other time a Wimbledon singles final was decided by a 6-0 6-0 scoreline was in 1911 when Dorothea Lambert Chambers beat fellow British player Dora Boothby.

Before Saturday, it had happened only once at any of the other Grand Slam finals, in 1988 when Steffi Graf demolished Natasha Zvereva in 34 minutes at the French Open. At least Anisimova almost stretched it to an hour.

It is customary in tennis finals these days for the runner-up to say a few words before the champion.

Anisimova probably wished Centre Court would open up and swallow her as she answered questions from former British player Annabel Croft, managing to hold herself together enough to say a few coherent words through the tears.

Later, in the relative sanctuary of the media conference room, she was reflective as she spoke of how she had been frozen by nerves in the biggest match of her career.

"It was tough to digest, it's not how I would have wanted my first Grand Slam final to go, I think I was in shock afterwards. It's not an easy thing to go through, losing 0 and 0."

A sense of perspective is perhaps easier for a player who was marked out as a future Grand