With a dominating performance Saturday, Serena Williams claimed the 22nd Grand Slam title of her career, matching Steffi Graf’s Open-era record and achieving a goal that taunted her for almost a year.
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Williams lost to Kerber in the final at this years Australian Open and was beaten by Garbine Muguruza in the final of the French Open.
Williams, however, was more clinical this time around, her serve particularly potent as she conceded just one break point in the match, which she erased with a 117-miles-per-hour ace.
Serena Williams now has an opportunity to become the all-time Open-era Grand Slam Champion in front of a home crowd at this year’s US Open in September.
“I had just enough time to change and get the ankles retaped”, Serena said.
It was a double delight for Serena at Wimbledon 2016 as she not only won the women’s singles title, but has also notched up the women’s doubles crown alongside her elder sister Venus Williams. She only faced one break point, at 3-3 in the second, and saved it with one of her 13 aces. Though Williams never lost her serve, it was a high-quality match from start to finish with thunderous baseline rallies and delicately sliced drop shots.
34-287 Age in years and days, breaking the record for oldest woman to win a Grand Slam title that she set last year at Wimbledon (33 years, 289 days).
But after rediscovering her ruthless streak in her 28th grand slam singles final she said that it was a special feeling and there had been a few sleepless nights fretting about it.
Concluding that she needed “time”, as people do, he said, “I think we did not realize how much time she needed to recover from the (dejection) of the loss of the U.S. Open”.
Graf notched up her 22nd Slam in 1999 at the French Open, before retiring from tennis – leaving her two spots behind Margaret Court, who won her 24th Slam in 1973. “That is when I started saying “look, I am going”.
But it was the moment she raised her fist proudly to celebrate her Black pride that was the highlight of the game.
“I think that’s his ritual”. I put so much expectation on me. I had a good time, to just get to see her, which was really cool, actually. “I think I was able to do that today”. Which is something the American learnt in the potholed, angst-ridden chase to reach major signpost No.22, a full year and three hard losses after getting to 21.
Williams arrived at Wimbledon with wounded confidence, and she played a shaky match in the second round, against fellow American Christina McHale. “And she also holds 22 so she’s right in line with Stefanie”, King said on BBC One.
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“I learned that you can’t win everything, even though I try really hard. You really deserve it, you are a great champion, a great person”, Kerber said.
