World No1 Serena Williams has warned fellow Wimbledon finalist Angelique Kerber that she is desperate to claim her first grand slam title of the year when the duo do battle on Centre Court on Saturday.
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In thwarting hopes of a fifth all-sister final at the All England Club with a 6-4 6-4 win over Venus Williams in Thursday’s second semi, the free-hitting German left-hander showed Wimbledon was no place for sentiment.
Williams, however, has been in imperious form in this tournament, and her 6-2, 6-0 win against Elena Vesnina in the final was perhaps her most dominant match of the year, lasting just 48 minutes.
In Saturday’s Wimbledon final, top-seeded Williams will face fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber, who stunned the American in the final of the Australian Open in January to win her first major.
“I’m very happy, you know, I was really focused today because we’ve had a lot of tough matches before”, said Serena.
Serena, who is bidding to match Steffi Graf’s open era record of 22 Grand Slam singles title, simply had too much firepower for her unseeded opponent.
At 34, Williams is the oldest woman to make the final at the All England Club since Martina Navratilova in 1994.
Britain’s Kate, Duchess of Cambridge in the royal box on centre court applauds as USA’s Serena Williams wins her match against Russia’s Elena Vesnina.
The Williams sisters also met in the semifinals in 2000, with Venus winning and going on to win her first Wimbledon title. “She played really hard and I was trying to move in good, like on the last point”.
Vesnina and Williams won’t have to wait long to play each other again. “She could’ve easily been in the finals, and then in the finals, all it takes is one good match of unbelievable tennis and you just don’t know what happens”.
The two semi-finals lasted a total of just two hours, which prompted a question at Serena’s post-match press conference about whether women deserved equal prize money.
But against Kerber, Venus was broken the first four times she served. SERENA WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think we deserve equal prize money.
After the match, Williams left no doubt that she was anything but satisfied with qualifying for her third Grand Slam final of the year. This is a complete new tournament, on a different surface.
An increasingly tired looking Williams, 36, wilted under the pressure and made a string of errors, surrendering the set by burying a forehand into the net.
“I met her few times”.
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After the singles semifinals, the Williams siblings headed back out on court for their doubles quarterfinal, beating Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova 7-6 (1), 4-6, 6-2. Vesnina was able to save once in the seventh, but drops the eighth game to Williams, 40-0.
