Third time lucky as Serena equals Steffi

Being so close to a 22nd Grand Slam title had affected her at the last three majors, but to come out and show no nerves on Centre Court was remarkable.

Margaret Court’s pre-Open Era mark of 24 Grand Slam titles, set entirely before Williams’ lifetime, has enough asterisks attached to it to reasonably negate comparison, even if Williams was interested in discussing a possible next milestone – which she clearly is not.

“Watching Serena earlier was so awesome, and I was so into that”. ‘ Oh, God, no. One thing I learned about past year is to enjoy the moment. “And then after, the other losses were a outcome of this one”. The German just needs to work on her serve.

After her win, Williams said it had been “incredibly difficult” to avoid thinking about equalling Graf. Once in the doubles, too, I thought it was a break and the match was over.

Still, she admitted the stress of falling just short so many times had weighed on her. With Venus’s health having improved in the past 12 months, they have been able to reunite and the lure of the Olympics helped them get back into action. But that only puts her at No. 40 the Forbes list of highest-paid athletes, nowhere near soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, who is No. 1 at US$88 million a year. A few also couldn’t help but point out how perfectly timed this momentous win is.

Williams was taken to deuce on serve at 4-4 and 30-30 at 5-5, yelling “C’mon!” as she kept her nose in front. At one point I really, really took a deep breath.

“This is how Serena is playing”, Kerber said. Every day, like even if I want to hang out with my friends, I have to think: ‘Oh, I have to go to practise at 8 in the morning, I have to do this, I have to train.’ That’s still every day of my life. “She really played an unbelievable match”, said Kerber, who hadn’t appeared in a major final until beating Williams in Melbourne.

“Today when she’s in trouble at 15-30, boom, boom, this is Serena”, said Mouratoglou.

Said she wouldn’t discuss it.

Williams secured a final break in the eighth game of the second set, and then served out the victory with a forehand volley victor, fittingly the same stroke which she had flubbed against Kerber down match point in Australia.

It was breezy, but that didn’t seem to hamper Williams, whose older sister Venus sat in her guest box, a couple of seats over from Beyoncé and Jay Z.

That earned Williams a $10,000 fine, but perhaps it pointed her in the right direction.

The fourth seed, bidding to become the first German to win the Wimbledon crown since Steffi Graf in 1996, slipped to a battling 7-5, 6-3 loss in one of the better All England Club finals in recent years. That is something that I think is of great concern because it will be devastating. That’s what I do best.

“So we started playing in Rome”.