Iga Swiatek did not have to play the world number one en route to winning her first Wimbledon title.
Swiatek thrashed Amanda Anisimova in the Wimbledon final, not dropping a single game against the American.
This was one of the shortest Grand Slam finals in history, with Wimbledon being told they need to make a rule change.
In the semifinals, Anisimova beat Aryna Sabalenka, and now a former world number one has predicted what would have happened if Swiatek played the Belarusian instead.
Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesKarolina Pliskova claims Aryna Sabalenka would have beaten Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon final
Despite being the clear world number one on the WTA Tour, Sabalenka is yet to win a Grand Slam title this year.
That being said, former Wimbledon finalist Karolina Pliskova believes that would have changed if Sabalenka had played Swiatek in the final of the grass court major this year.
Pliskova, who is currently recovering from an ankle injury, admitted this when speaking on the Czech Rakety podcast.
She said, “I think Sabalenka would have beaten Iga Swiatek in the final.”
Swiatek and Sabalenka have never played each other on grass before, but it is the Pole who leads the head-to-head 8-5.
However, the last time that they met it was Sabalenka who beat Swiatek in the Roland Garros semifinals.
The world number one would lose in the subsequent Roland Garros final, before Sabalenka made some controversial comments about Coco Gauff and Swiatek.
What happened when Iga Swiatek played Karolina Pliskova in a final?
Although a final ending 6-0 6-0 is a very rare thing to happen, it is not the first time that Swiatek has achieved this feat.
The only other time that she managed to do this was against the aforementioned Pliskova at the Italian Open.
Swiatek beat Pliskova in just 46 minutes, with the Czech only winning 13 points in the entire match.
After the match, Pliskova spoke in her press conference about how difficult it was to compete against Swiatek when she is playing like that.
“I think she really played great,” said Pliskova. “You know, she didn’t give me anything, not even like — I mean, not that I would play really great at some moments (smiling), not really today, but I think sometimes I just tried to make it a bit difficult just to put the ball in. I just was feeling horrible out there today. That’s one of those days.
“But I think she really made it extremely difficult for me to do any point and just to play any, you know, like anything from my game. She was playing super fast. I thought she was just going for it.
“I think she had amazing day and I had horrible day. That’s one of those, like, the combination which I guess that can happen.
“But, yeah, I mean, I’m not going to throw all the week away from because of just like those 50 minutes or how long we were there, and also, you can see she’s really extremely confident on clay, because, I mean, she has a lot of success last year, a lot of success this year, this week especially.
“So I think she was just feeling amazing. But other than that, I was feeling horrible. I think there is not much we can speak about this match. It was just one of those days.”