Wimbledon women's semifinals: Amanda Anisimova stayed calm, and Iga Swiatek was 'in the zone'

In the end, Amanda Anisimova didn’t have to think, and that was probably a good thing.

With her opponent, Aryna Sabalenka, serving at 4-5 in the third set, Anisimova lined up to try to close out the match, and make the Wimbledon final, for the fourth time. She had squandered one match point in her previous service game, and two more on Sabalenka’s serve. A few moments ago, Anisimova had been up 0-40, and appeared to be home free. Now it was 30-40. If the game went to deuce, how would she react? The American’s swings on her previous match points had been more than a little nervy.

“I was absolutely dying out there,” Anisimova told the crowd later.

Read more: Amanda Anisimova tops Aryna Sabalenka in three sets, will face Iga Swiatek for Wimbledon title

So maybe it was a blessing that Sabalenka drilled a serve down the middle, which meant that Anisimova had no time to worry about what she should do with her return; she just stepped in and drilled it back. And maybe it was even more of a blessing that Sabalenka hit her first ground stroke deep and down the middle, again giving Anisimova little time to choose her response. She swung up and out on her forehand, with no sign of tightness, and the ball sailed crosscourt and toward the corner.

Sabalenka, who had moved forward, was caught off guard and had to scramble back to try to catch up with the ball. For a second, it looked as if it would fly long. Instead, it dropped a few inches inside the baseline, leaving Sabalenka to flail futilely in its wake. Just like that, her comeback was over, and Anisimova was a Grand Slam finalist.

“It was such a tough match and a little bit of a roller coaster there,” Anisimova said after her 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 victory. “I think we were both a bit shaky throughout the match. That showed.”

When Anisimova lost the second set and was broken to start the third, it looked like her Cinderella run may be over. She had a wining record against Sabalenka, but she was a surprise semifinalist ranked 12 spots lower, who had a history of withering under pressure. We had seen her wracked by stomach aches caused by nerves, and one year at Indian Wells, after failing to finish off a match, she walked out and never returned.

But that was the Anisimova of an earlier era, before she took a break from the tour and rekindled her love for the game and the travel, before she started working with her current coach, Rick Vleeshouwers. This version of Anisimova had the strength to look on the bright side.

“‘You’re doing great, just stay calm,’” Anisimova told herself after she lost the second set. “The opposite of what a tennis player is usually telling themselves.”

It turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. From 0-1 down in the third, Anisimova did play great, firing her backhand to both corners and breaking Sabalenka to go up 4-1. From there, she did what she could to hang on for dear life and keep the nerves at bay. Anisimova has always been one of the game’s most effortless ball-strikers; on the final point, she just did what came naturally.

“I could not believe it,” she said of her final winning forehand. “I was just so relieved.”

Thursday’s first semifinal was like a ride on a boat that rocks harder and harder from one side to the other, until both players and their teams are a little seasick. By the time the second semi began, the storm had passed, and there was nothing but smooth sailing ahead—at least for the winner.

That was Iga Swiatek, who wasted nary a second in bundling Belinda Bencic out of the tournament, 6-2, 6-0, in 72 minutes.

The match got off to an exceedingly inauspicious start for Bencic, who tumbled to the court and was broken in the second game. She was nursing a toe injury from her previous match, and while it didn’t obviously slow her down today, it couldn’t have helped. Not when your opponent, a five-time Slam champ, has her ground strokes clicking and start rifling them past you right away. Swiatek would hit 26 winners to Bencic’s 11, convert five of eight break points, and never trail. Before the match, I thought Swiatek’s forehand would be the key—would it be on or off? It was on.

“For sure I played great,” Swiatek said. “I felt like I could put pressure on Belinda from the beginning. I felt just good and in the zone. I was focused from the beginning till the end.”

The win completes a rapid, 180-degree turnaround for Swiatek. After failing to win anything on clay, her favorite surface, this spring, she has suddenly mastered her least-favorite surface, grass, in a matter of a month. She made the final of the tune-up event in Bad Homburg, and is now into her first Wimbledon final. She’s serving bigger this year, and seems more willing to play defense when the moment calls for it. Both of those things are bound to help on this surface.

“I’ve been enjoying just this new feeling of being a bit more comfortable on grass,” Swiatek said, with her customary sense of understatement.

Most important, Swiatek is making fewer errors, and letting the surface help her power the ball through the court without over-swinging. One more match, and we may be calling her the "Queen of Grass."