SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
I wait all week to say and now it's time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: Championship weekend at Wimbledon. The men's final is tomorrow, but today the women's final, and what a final finale. Sportswriter Howard Bryant joins us. Howard, thanks for being with us.
HOWARD BRYANT: Hi, Scott. How are you?
SIMON: I'm fine - well, better - well, 6-0, 6-0. thanks, my friend. Listen, women's final today in Wimbledon. Poland's Iga Swiatek, who's won five Grand Slam titles but never Wimbledon, won it today. How do we say this nicely? A wipeout, wasn't it?
BRYANT: Yeah. It was a destruction. It was a total destruction. It was 54 minutes, and it was - it could have been even shorter. That's how good Swiatek was, and that was how overcome Anisimova was. Very, very difficult tournament. Let's start with, you know, the American, Amanda Anisimova, terrible ending for her, but what a tournament - two weeks of getting to her first final, two weeks of beating the No. 1 player in the world in Aryna Sabalenka, two weeks of her coming all the way back after taking a mental health break in 2023, coming back in 2024, and to get here - obviously not the way she wanted it to end. But sports are cruel, and sports are lonely, and sports can be terrible. And watching her be swallowed whole by the moment was not something that you really wanted to see, but it's also part of the arena. And better for her to say that she made a Wimbledon final than to not make it. She had a great tournament.
SIMON: I have to ask, what do you think about the end, the ceremony?
BRYANT: Well, I think, Scott, when you win - and let's face it, Iga Swiatek is one of the great players of all time. All she needs now is an Australian Open championship to have a career Grand Slam. But when you beat someone as badly as she defeated Anisimova, her post-match celebration and the sort of victory lap she did and the - it did not - it was not the classiest moment. But I also understand when you're in that moment and you compete that hard - and grass had been her worst surface - I'm sure she wasn't thinking so much about her opponent as much as she was thinking about the work that she put into - put in - an exclamation point, shall we say, on this tournament, but, boy, it was not a great look in terms of sportsmanship.
SIMON: Yeah. Well, men's final tomorrow - Carlos Alcaraz of Spain attempting a three-peat, but he's got to face the world No. 1 ranked player in the world, Jannik Sinner of Italy. And it's a rematch of the French Open final, which many people have called one of the greatest matches in tennis history. What do you expect tomorrow?
BRYANT: It's the matchup everybody wants to see. You're not going to get a triple bagel the way we got the double bagel today. But these are the two best players by far. Alcaraz is on his way. Sinner is on his way. This is going to be the marquee matchup for the next decade until somebody comes along and changes that. So everyone is getting the rematch they were hoping they were going to get after the French Open. It should be a blockbuster.
SIMON: Finally, ESPN broke a story this week that NFL and the NFL players union executives kept from players details of a report that found teams had colluded to keep players' salaries down. This is a developing story, but isn't the role of a union to look out for the interests of their membership, not keep information from them?
BRYANT: Yeah. Scott, this is a developing story, no question we're going to find out more. But what a terrible look. If any of this is true, it's - it looks awful for the union. It looks awful for the new executive director, Lloyd Howell, who also, in addition to allegedly, you know, suppressing that report also has conflicts of interest in working with league-friendly organizations. He's got a relationship with the Carlyle Group on a part-time basis. He serves on paid boards. And believe me, if you're a union, if you're a union member, if you're one of those football players, you've been fighting with the league for money and for benefits and for everything for all these years, the last thing you are expecting is having, you know, your leader be in a very, very cozy relationship with, with Roger Goodell. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how this whole thing plays out, but it's a terrible look for the players and a very bad look for labor in general in sports.
SIMON: Howard Bryant, thanks so much.
BRYANT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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