Serena’s comments came after she lifted her seventh Wimbledon title and equalled Steffi Graf’s record of 22 Grand Slam titles with a 7-5, 6-3 win over reigning Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber.
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As Williams cements her spot in the GOAT discussion, Kerber’s breakthrough at age 28 is one of the biggest storylines this season.
“I had just enough time to change and get the ankles re-taped”. Her victory at Wimbledon a year ago raised her Grand Slam count to 21, but while she nearly had added to that total since, she was not able to. “It was getting down to the pressure”. Williams is 22-6 in Grand Slam finals, meaning half of those losses came in the past 10 months. But in that semifinal, no less, she fell victim to the stress as well as to 30th-ranked Roberta Vinci.
Angelique Kerber is keen to reach Grand Slam finals on a regular basis after losing the final of Wimbledon to Serena Williams.
John McEnroe, who is helping coach Milos Raonic as he tries to become the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles championship here and is also doing TV commentary, described Williamss performance in the final as super human. Soon, she was wrapping Kerber in a warm embrace, then holding up those fingers to symbolize “22”.
“But I’m not thinking about this”.
“I do that a lot. It is an honor to play here on this court and I would like to say thank you to my box you are awesome, I have the best team and sometimes I am not so easy but you always believe in me”. I realized that’s pretty good. I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the match. And later Saturday, Williams had a chance to head home with a second piece of hardware: She and Venus were scheduled to play in the women’s doubles final on Centre Court. Both the players held on to their serves for the first eleven games of the match.
Kerber escaped a tough opening service game saving three break points but then settled. She blasted 13 aces to Kerber’s none. Once in the doubles, too, I thought it was a break and the match was over. I had a good time, to just get to see her, which was really cool, actually. I think every single point I worked for, and nothing was given to me.
Kerber, a German who knows Graf well, hadn’t dropped a set until Saturday.
As for time, which remains undefeated against all athletes, Williams, 34, said that she and 36-year-old Venus had as long left as they wanted.
“I think the pressure can be off when I decide to put up my rackets”, she said, laughing.
Probably because she didn’t worry about doing anything wrong.
Williams arrived at Wimbledon with wounded confidence, and she played a shaky match in the second round, against fellow American Christina McHale.
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Despite firing off a double fault while serving for the match, Venus quickly redeemed herself on the next point as Serena picked off a backhand volley to seal the title.
