Watch Sem Verbeek lead centre court in singing happy birthday to his father, after the Dutch player won the mixed doubles final with partner Katerina Siniakova at Wimbledon 2025.
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Iga Swiatek breezed into her first Wimbledon final on Thursday but hopes of a dream match-up with Aryna Sabalenka were dashed when the top seed was stunned by Amanda Anisimova.
Five-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek, not previously known for her prowess on grass, demolished former Olympic champion Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-0 in just 71 minutes on Centre Court.
“Honestly, I never even dreamed that it’s going to be possible for me to play in the final,” said the 24-year-old eighth seed.
“So I’m just super-excited and proud of myself and, I don’t know, tennis keeps surprising me.
“I thought I had experienced everything on the court but I didn’t experience playing well on grass, so that’s the first time. I’m super excited and just enjoying it.”
In baking conditions, Swiatek caught her Swiss opponent cold, racing into a 3-0 lead, and never relinquished her grip against her 35th-ranked opponent.
Bencic, who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, at least got on the board in the first set, but in the second set the rampant Swiatek went up another gear and her opponent had no answers.
“Today was just a different level from Iga. She played amazing and I didn’t feel like she let me in the match for one second,” Bencic said.
“There’s nothing I really regret. In the end, she was just too good, and I was a step too short.”
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Swiatek has largely gone under the radar at this year’s Wimbledon, dropping just one set while every seed above her has been eliminated.
Four of her five major wins have come on the clay of the French Open, with her previous best performance at Wimbledon a run to the quarter-finals in 2023.
She made her first grass-court final at Bad Homburg just two weeks ago and is now into her second final on the surface.
Swiatek has won all five of her Grand Slam finals, but standing in the way of a sixth major title is Anisimova in their first professional meeting.
Anisimova ousts Sabalenka
Anisimova, the American 13th seed, shattered Sabalenka’s Wimbledon title bid with a tense 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 victory.
World number one Sabalenka had reached the previous three Grand Slam finals but came up short against Anisimova, who matched her blow for blow in a bruising encounter lasting just over two hour and a half hours.
“This doesn’t feel real right now, honestly,” said Anisimova. “Aryna is such a tough competitor and I was absolutely dying out there. I don’t know how I pulled it out.
“We’ve had so many tough battles and to come out on top and be in the final of Wimbledon is incredible.”
The 23-year-old, who now has an impressive 6-3 winning record against Sabalenka, won the first set but the Belarusian hit back to level.
Anisimova was hailed as a teenage sensation after reaching the 2019 French Open semi-finals aged just 17.
But in 2023 she took an eight-month break from the court for mental health reasons, tumbling out the top 400.
This time last year, she was on the comeback trail but was ranked too low to get into the Wimbledon main draw and fell in qualifying.
On Thursday she became only the second player in the Open era to reach a women’s final at a Grand Slam after losing in qualifying at the previous year’s event.
“If you told me I would be in the final of Wimbledon, I would not believe you. It’s indescribable to be honest,” she said.
She is guaranteed to make her top-10 debut on Monday.
Defeat was a bitter blow for Sabalenka, who has still never been beyond the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
The 27-year-old won last year’s US Open to collect her third major, but suffered agonising defeats in the finals of this year’s Australian and French Opens.
“Losing sucks,” she said. “You feel like you are getting close to your dream and then this is the end. You always feel like you want to die and not exist any more.”
“But then you sit there a little bit and think about what you could have done differently.”
Few would have predicted Iga Swiatek’s best Grand Slam result so far this season would come at Wimbledon.
Even the eighth seed is “surprised” she has reached the final.
Swiatek, 24, became known as the ‘Queen of Clay’ after winning four French Open titles in five years, while her two-year reign as the world number one – ended by Aryna Sabalenka last year – was underpinned by consistent success on the hard courts.
Grass was the outlier. But the narrative that Swiatek cannot play on the surface – despite having won a junior Wimbledon title in 2018 – has now been smashed after she reached the SW19 final.
“I’m not going to say I wouldn’t believe [I could reach the Wimbledon final] because I kind of believe and I know in tennis a lot can happen,” Swiatek said.
“But I guess I would have thought I would need to do a lot to be in this place and learn a lot.”
What makes the run even more surprising is Swiatek has been nowhere near her dominant best over the past year.
She did not reach a final for a year after her 2024 French Open triumph, slipping to eighth in the world – her lowest ranking since March 2022 – as a result.
There were a mixture of reasons – on and off the court – as to why Swiatek’s level has dipped.
Losing in the Olympics semi-finals in Paris last summer was a bitter blow, with Swiatek saying she cried for “six hours” afterwards.
In November came a bigger bombshell – Swiatek had failed a doping test.
It was announced she had tested positive for heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) in an out-of-competition sample. She was subsequently given a one-month ban after the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted the result was caused by contamination.
In May, Swiatek told BBC Sport how it was difficult to “accept” having her life turned “upside down”, saying she was still looking for “a peaceful time”.
Former world number nine Andrea Petkovic, now regarded as one of the most astute current analysts, saw a “new freshness” when Swiatek played her first grass-court event at Bad Homburg.
“For most of this year you could sense pressure and tension when she stepped on court. In Bad Homburg you could see that was gone,” the German told BBC Sport.
“She is always going to be a player who is intense on court but there was just a bit more ease and seamlessness about her.
Before this year, Swiatek had only moved into the second week of Wimbledon once, when she reached the 2023 quarter-finals.
After a shock third-round defeat by Yulia Putintseva last year, Swiatek said she had not given herself enough time to mentally recover from her French Open win.
This year, having lost to Sabalenka in the Roland Garros semi-finals, she went to Mallorca for a week’s training on grass before returning to competitive action in Bad Homburg.
Swiatek reached the final at the WTA 500 event, where a defeat by Jessica Pegula left her in tears, but it was an indication that her level on the surface had improved.
“I feel like I have developed as a player and I had time to practise a little bit more [this year],” said Swiatek.
“I would say we mainly focused on my movement and how I should stop before hitting the ball.
Swiatek decided to switch coach at the end of last year, replacing Tomasz Wiktorowski with Wim Fissette, and it has taken time for the tweaks she was making to bed in.
Swiatek’s serve is an area which Fissette has focused on.
The Pole has won 78% of her first-serve points at Wimbledon – the joint second highest in the women’s singles.
“When you make a big change and hire a new coach, it takes a while to see the changes,” said Petkovic.
“You feel well, you feel you’re progressing and you’re expecting to see results right away. But it doesn’t happen right away.
“I think she got a bit hectic at the start of the season. Now something is different and she has a bit more patience with herself.
Swiatek’s top-spin forehand has been fundamental to her success at the French Open, but does not regularly have the same effect at Wimbledon.
The lower bounce of the usually slicker grass has previously taken away the time she likes to set up her killer shot, which bounces higher on the clay and goes out of her opponent’s strike zone.
But the warmer conditions at this Wimbledon fortnight seem to have helped her.
Agnieszka Radwanska, who reached the Wimbledon final in 2012, feels an athletic clay-courter like Swiatek could also be benefitting from the SW19 grass losing court speed.
“The grass is much slower and I feel it is getting slower and slower,” said Radwanska.
“When the temperature is over 30 degrees, the courts are not slippery and the ball stops on the grass. It is much slower and much harder to finish the point.
“You have to be more patient. You’re not winning the rally in two or three shots, it is more like four or five shots – it is a different game to before.
Vice President Kashim Shettima has called for immediate and united action to close Nigeria’s widening skills gap, describing it as a national priority critical to economic transformation.
This is just as the Federal Government has hinted at a proposal for the review of existing skills training centres across several Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government to align their work and functions with national development goals.
The Vice President, who spoke on Thursday during the 6th meeting of the National Council on Skills (NCS) at the Presidential Villa, noted that the council’s mandate is to develop a strategic workforce capable of meeting Nigeria’s evolving economic demands.
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“What binds us together supersedes whatever divides us. We have to make this country work. We need to fill in the skills gap,” he said.
VP Shettima pointed out that the council has a mission to strategically position Nigeria’s workforce to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving economy.
“This council was established with a clear mandate to drive the strategic development of the skilled workforce that can contribute meaningfully to national growth and prosperity,” he added.
The Vice President described the session as an open forum where positions were aired and important decisions were taken, emphasising that stakeholder engagement, consensus-building, and decisive leadership are essential to fixing Nigeria’s skills and employment crisis.
A major highlight of the meeting was the proposal for a National Skills Infrastructure Audit to create a centralised database of all training facilities, verify their functionality, and identify gaps or overlaps in infrastructure.
“The government’s policy trajectory is to strengthen human capital development for national growth and industry through skills development. However, unless the skills infrastructure across MDAs is optimised, this vision will remain unattainable,” the council noted.
The audit will also involve physical verification of centres and a detailed cataloguing of operational training facilities, ensuring alignment with national occupational standards and labour market needs.
Earlier, Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, made a presentation on the National Artisan Skills Acquisition Programme (NASAP), an initiative aimed at training 10,000 artisans annually in high-demand construction trades.
The programme is designed to formalise Nigeria’s informal artisan sector by providing certification and onboarding qualified artisans onto a Digital Artisan Marketplace.
“The overall goal of NASAP is to establish a reliable and competent artisan workforce to drive the Ministry’s housing and infrastructure agenda while empowering Nigeria’s youth with employable skills,” the Minister said.
Host Maya Jama criticised one of the islanders on Love Island tonight over an “unnecessary” comment directed at one of their co-stars. The presenter took issue with a remark made by Ben Holbrough following a recoupling.
The latest episode of the ITV show concluded the recoupling after Casa Amor this week. It saw several islanders choose to couple-up with new co-stars rather than remain in the couples that had been formed prior to temporarily being in separate villa.s
Maya said amid the recoupling: “Any of the OG girls want to say anything?” Toni replied: “I don’t know. Tommy obviously surprised me. The rest of you not so much.”
Ben reacted: “Nah, I just think I’ve got to give it to Harrison, man. What Lauren’s been able to give him in three days you haven’t been able to do in two, three weeks.”
Toni hit back: “Save it, b***h.” Shakira said: “There’s two brain cells up there, I swear to god.” Addressing Ben’s comment, Maya said: “Yeah, I didn’t really mean like that Ben, that was unnecessary.”
Fans shared their thoughts about the scene on social media earlier. One person wrote on Instagram: “Maya is brilliant. Best TV host award.” Another said: “Love that Maya put Ben in his place.” A third viewer wrote: “Thank you Maya!”
Someone else said: “You tell him Maya.” One viewer wrote: “Maya getting involved, chefs kiss.” Whilst another fan reacted to a clip of the scene that was shared on the platform: “I love Maya calling them out for their behaviour.”
Not everyone was impressed though. Sharing their thoughts, one person wrote: “Suppose to be impartial Maya.” Another said in their response this evening: “But it’s true what Ben said Harrison looks happier than he was with Toni.”
The interaction came following the latest recoupling. It saw Tommy walk back into the villa with Lucy Quinn. He chose to couple-up with her after meeting in Casa Amor, rather than with Emily Moran, who had been coupled-up with prior.
Tommy’s decision meant that Emily Moran was left single as she had chosen to remain coupled-up with him. She was then dumped from the villa alongside Giorgio Russo, who had also been left single by Billykiss Azeez bringing back Boris Vidović.
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