As I expected, Serena Williams defeated Angelique Kerber 7-5 6-3 to win her 7th Wimbledon title and 22nd major title, tying Steffi Graf's open era record, and cementing her status as the greatest female tennis player of all time. (Technically, Margaret Court has 24 major singles titles, but only 11 of those were in the open era which began in 1968 and 7 of her 13 titles won before 1968 were in her home country of Australia, when not every top player competed in the Australian Open.)
Serena's win today means that she is 22-6 (79%) in major finals; it took her 346 grans slam matches to win 22 major titles, while it took Graf 303. Serena has won 304 grand slam matches (which is second behind Martina Navratilova's 306 grand slam match wins). At age 34, Serena is the oldest major champion ever, Graf won none of her titles over the age of 30, while Serena has won 10 (so far!) Serena won her first title at the age of 17 in 1999, but Graf won 9 of her titles before her 20th birthday.
WOMEN'S FINAL REVIEW
The match was a high quality affair, with both women hitting far more winners than errors. The key weapon in he match was Serena's serve. She had 13 aces, and only faced one break point (which she saved with an ace). From the back of the court, Kerber was superior, and when they got into long rallies the German was often the victor. However, with Serena holding serve relatively easily, most of the action was in Kerber's service games, and eventually the breaks came (in the 12th game of the first set) and the 8th game of the second set. Serena served out the match with 3 unreturnable serves and on championship point hit a duck volley into the open court.
1 comment:
And I don't suppose you liked the doubles final any less?!!!
Great day for the Williams family, and tennis in general.
Post a Comment