Kept coming close without quite getting it. And so she can flaunt it.
Advertisement
Serena Williams won her seventh Wimbledon title and 22nd major overall by beating Angelique Kerber 7-5, 6-3 on Centre Court.
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 said: “I’ve just felt a lot of pressure, I guess. This makes it all so much sweeter after all the work I have put in to get where I am now”.
She may be hard at times, with a rough tongue and a brusque manner, but as a tennis player she deserves her place alongside Graf as the greatest ever.
Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber are on court warming up for the Wimbledon final.
Kerber played great too and was even applauded by her rival in the fourth game of the second set when she finished off a 15-stroke end-to-end baseline rally by curling in a blazing backhand victor despite nearly running off into the side stands. “I hope that I will reach a few more finals and maybe win a few more Grand Slams”. “My goal is to win always at least a Slam a year”.
In the end, Kerber’s stellar counter-punching defense was not enough to defuse the power game and booming serves of Williams, who prevailed 7-5, 6-3 in the Wimbledon final on Saturday.
The long wait to see her name alongside Graf was a stressful time for the 34-year-old American.
At 3-3, Kerber earned a break point but that disappeared within the blink of an eye as Williams fired down a 117 miles per hour ace.
In a high quality final, the World No.1 dominated the rallies exchange at the outset using her big serve to good effect winning 88 percent of the points on serve. She finished the tournament having dropped only a single set on her way to victory, making a clear statement that despite being the runner-up only in the first two grand slams of the year, she is still the top name in women’s tennis.
Good friends of the tennis star, Williams has appeared in both of the artists’ music videos, the most recent being Mrs Carter’s video for “Sorry”, which shows the sports star dancing alongside Beyoncé. I expect to win every time I step out on the court. She volleyed well, too, winning the point on 16 of 22 trips to the net, including a tap-in on match point. The victory at Wimbledon a year ago raised her grand slam count to 21, where it remained until Saturday.
As such, Williams had to up her game, and did.
“I think I was still playing not bad”, Kerber said.
Advertisement
And it was evident in her words, most succinctly when a reporter asked after the semifinals what Williams makes of it when others refer to her as one of history’s greatest female athletes. We play together, so we stay together… After dropping that tiebreaker, Williams sat in her sideline chair and proceeded to smack her racket repeatedly against the grass, before flinging the equipment so far behind her that it landed in the lap of a TV cameraman. “She did everything right'”. She won all 12 sets she’s played since.
