"I feel like I belong": Amanda Anisimova builds on career breakthrough at debut WTA Finals

Amanda Anisimova is 24. She has been on tour for nearly a decade. She made two Grand Slam finals in the last five months. She’s ranked No. 4, and has wins over each of the Top 3 this season. She just beat Iga Swiatek to clinch a spot in the semifinals at the WTA Finals in Riyadh.

🖥️📲REPLAY: Amanda Anisimova def. Iga Swiatek, 2025 WTA Finals RR

But she can still find herself making statements like this:

“I feel like I belong at this point.”

You can’t say she got ahead of herself.

As recently as January, Anisimova didn’t feel the same self-assurance. According to her, the idea of joining the sport’s elite hardly crossed her mind as a possibility.

“If you would have told me a year ago I would be sitting right here, it would be a little hard to believe,” she said in Riyadh as the year-end, Top 8 event began.

“I think I’ve surprised myself along the way, for sure. I’ve definitely hit some goals that I dreamt of early in the year and didn’t think that maybe I would be able to achieve them by the end.”

For those of us who have been watching Anisimova since she steamrolled to the US Open girls’ title as a 16-year-old in 2017 without dropping a set—capped by a 6-0, 6-2 win over Coco Gauff in the final—her sudden ascension is hardly a surprise. She has always had some of the purest technique and timing, and easiest power, of anyone on either tour, and she was just a couple of games from making the Roland Garros final at 17.

For those of us who have watched Anisimova since then, though, her two-year leap from No. 369 to No. 4 is indeed a shock. For such a naturally gifted player, she never had the belief to go with it. The fact that her talents were so obvious only seemed to make it harder for her to deal with her inability to get the most from them. By the middle of 2023, her life on tour was “unbearable,” as she said, and she took the rest of that season off.

I’ve played a lot of tough matches this year. I know my capabilities. And I know if I can play my best tennis, I can give it my best shot. Amanda Anisimova

Since that crack-up, she has put the pieces of her career back together, starting from the inside out. She knew, after her time away, that she had to want to be out there to have any chance at succeeding.

“I don’t think there’s anything in particular that I could say has helped me get to where I am,” Anisimova says. “I think it was a combination of many different things…I think all the hard work I did on the inside was what really paid off for me.”

“I think just me enjoying the process has gotten me this far.”

Anisimova’s ranking rise, her appearance in two major finals, her pair of WTA 1000 wins, her bounce-back after losing 0 and 0 at Wimbledon: Those have been her headline achievements of 2025. But another stat may be more impressive, considering her past history: She has won her last 13 three-set matches, going back to April. Clutch play, holding onto leads, closing out tight matches: Those were not her specialities in her past life. Now they’ve become second nature.

“I’ve played a lot of tough matches this year,” Anisimova says. “I know my capabilities. And I know if I can play my best tennis, I can give it my best shot.”

Anisimova’s newfound grit has been on full display in Riyadh. She started slowly, losing to Elena Rybakina 6-3, 6-1, and looking less than sure of herself in her WTA Finals debut. Instead of letting that sap her confidence, she steeled herself through two three-set wins, over Madison Keys and Swiatek. She lost the first set both times, but never looked rattled or down.

In the second set against Swiatek, Anisimova stayed patient through nine games, before finally breaking for the first time in the match, at 5-4. She ran away with the third, belting winners that landed far from the lines but still zoomed right past her speedy opponent. This wasn’t an off-form or weary Iga, either; she was fired up and ready from point one.

“I did everything I could today, so like no regrets,” Swiatek said. “I felt like I was really in the zone, positive mindset. I fought and really didn’t give up—it wasn’t enough.”

For Anisimova, those might be the sweetest words of all, and the truest measure of how far she has come. Swiatek, of course, is the woman who humbled her on Centre Court, and in front of the world. But it’s Anisimova who has won both of their matches since, and been the better player over the past four months.

Winning leads to confidence, and confidence leads to winning, we often hear in tennis—it’s a closed loop. But Anisimova has proven that idea wrong. You can gain belief from your defeats, too, if you keep them in the proper perspective.

Yes, she lost 0 and 0 in a Wimbledon final. But she decided, rightly, to focus on the second part part of that sentence—“in a Wimbledon final”—rather than the first. Set to face world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals, Anisimova is one win away from playing the final match, at the biggest women’s-only event, of the season. She was right to believe, finally, that her game is made to stay at the top.