Swiatek vs. Bencic: Breaking down the Wimbledon bottom-half semifinal

Iga Swiatek and Belinda Bencic are both into their first Wimbledon semifinals. Who will go one step further? We break down their strengths and advantages.

Two first-time Wimbledon semifinalists will square off in the bottom half of the draw for a place in Saturday's championship final -- but these are not newcomers to bigtime matches.

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At one end of the court will be five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek of Poland. Her final-four showing here means the former World No. 1 has at last made the semifinals or better at all four Grand Slam events.

At the other side will be Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, less than 15 months after giving birth to daughter Bella. This is only Bencic's second Grand Slam semifinal, but the former World No. 4 is an Olympic gold medalist (2021 Tokyo) and a two-time WTA 1000 champion.

Swiatek leads the head-to-head 3-1. Their most recent meeting came at 2023 Wimbledon, and Swiatek won it. However, Bencic's win did come at a Grand Slam event (2021 US Open).

Who will prevail and make their first Wimbledon final? Let's break down the showdown:

The case for Swiatek

One of the great ironies in women's tennis is that clay-court expert Iga Swiatek's only Junior Grand Slam singles title came on grass, at 2018 Junior Wimbledon.

"[The] year that I won juniors was super hot," Swiatek pointed out, not for the first time. "The grass was already not a grass. It was more clay, you know.

"[In the main draw] next year against Golubic, the grass was so long. It was totally different, like a totally different tournament."

Swiatek lost that 2019 first-round match to future Wimbledon quarterfinalist Viktorija Golubic. To this day, it is the only time Swiatek has ever lost in the first round of a Grand Slam event.

That is because Swiatek takes every experience she has, good or bad, and learns from it. Year by year, Swiatek's grass-court acumen has expanded -- she has yet to win a title on the surface, but she keeps growing and adjusting.

"[This year] we mainly focused on my movement," Swiatek said on Wednesday. "Also, just on fast hands because obviously it's important here not to, like, stop the movements, even though the ball sometimes is fast, and the serve."

Swiatek has been rewarded with her best grass-court season by far. She made her first grass-court final two weeks ago in Bad Homburg, and has won eight matches on the surface this year -- her most in a single season.

And if Swiatek can serve like she did in Wednesday's first set, she will be very tough to break on Thursday. En route to a 6-2 lead over Liudmila Samsonova, Swiatek won 100 percent of her first-serve points (10-for-10).

Samsonova made a valiant comeback in the second set, but Swiatek stayed firm and closed out the quarterfinal win 6-2, 7-5. Perhaps in previous years she would have become more rattled on grass -- but that chapter seems to have closed.

"Obviously if your opponent is winning two games in a row and is breaking you back, you need to change something 'cause you can't let her keep winning," Swiatek said. "I just know that what I need to do and I try to focus on that.

"Anytime the momentum changes, you just need to get back to work and do something better. That's it."

Swiatek hasn't won a title in over a year, so it would be another great irony if she could win her first title of 2025 by hoisting the Venus Rosewater Dish -- but bet against her at your own risk.

The case for Bencic

After giving birth to Bella in April 2024, Bencic came back to action at the very end of October, at ITF and WTA 125 events. Her first tour-level match of her return was at the very start of this season at United Cup.

So, in less than seven months at tour-level events since coming back, Bencic has won a title (WTA 500 Abu Dhabi in February), picked up three Top 10 wins (including over Mirra Andreeva in Wednesday's quarterfinals) and is projected to already be back in the Top 20 on Monday.

And now, of course, a first Wimbledon semifinal -- confirming Bencic's suspicion that she was ready to get back on tour at a faster pace than some might have predicted, including herself.

"I feel great on the practice court," Bencic said on Monday. "That's why I felt like I came back earlier than expected, than I expected for myself.

"I'm also surprised about how fast the results are coming. I think it's just really a result of the work we put in and also the mindset that I have now. ... I am surprised, but of course, I'm not going to complain about it."

Like Swiatek, Bencic is a former Junior Wimbledon singles champion (2013). But unlike Swiatek, once she hit the Hologic WTA Tour, grass became one of her top surfaces.

Her very first WTA singles title came on grass, at 2015 Eastbourne, and she has made four additional grass-court finals. She made the Wimbledon Round of 16 in 2015 as well, then matched that result in 2018 and 2023.

Finally, she cracked the fourth-round code this year and has gone deep at SW19. Taking the ball early and mostly keeping it low, her game is a natural fit for the skiddy grass.

More importantly, she is playing the pressure points superbly this year. She has been forced into a tiebreak four times in her last three matches -- each time, she rose to the occasion, winning them all.

"I tried to forget some setbacks, and some games that you fail to serve [out] or to return, I tried to forget it very quickly," Bencic said on Wednesday. "I think as a tennis player you need to do that."

If Bencic can take the ball on the rise and rush Swiatek, the Swiss player's proclivity for the grass courts could become a determining factor. A maiden Grand Slam final is certainly not out of the question for Bella's mom.

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