Wimbledon 2015: Serena Williams Defeats Garbiñe Muguruza and Closes In on Grand Slam

[FlyJ]

 

Three years had passed since the Wimbledon champion’s trophy was last in her possession, so Serena Williams had some fun with it.

 

She held it high on Centre Court with both strong arms (classic). She balanced it on her head like a book in a 1950s charm school and walked with it (unconventional). At one stage, she even playfully declined to hand it back to a Wimbledon official (understandable).

 

“At the beginning of the year, this is the one I really wanted to win,” Williams said. “So that was the first thing and the main thing on my mind.”

 

Winning Wimbledon — which Williams has now done six times — is normally a sufficient thrill on its own. And Saturday’s 6-4, 6-4 victory over Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain, which made the 33-year-old Williams the oldest Wimbledon singles champion of the Open era, was a remarkably pleasant contrast to her dark and disorienting experience at the All England Club a year ago.

 

In 2014, she lost in the third round in singles here and then stumbled around the grass in a doubles match before retiring. She cited a virus, yet was going through a difficult off-court period as well, according to her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.

 

But Williams has proved nothing if not resilient during her increasingly phenomenal career — coming back from major health scares, downward tennis spirals, family troubles and tragedy, particularly the 2003 murder of her half sister Yetunde Price.

 

Williams’s mental strength, at this stage, looks much more like a fact than a subject of debate, and she will now need to test its limits again as she chases the ultimate tennis achievement — the Grand Slam — at this year’s United States Open.

 

“You better ask all your questions about the Grand Slam, because it will be banned soon,” she said, with a laugh, to a small group of reporters shortly after her victory.

 

With her victory at Wimbledon, Williams now holds all four Grand Slam singles titles — the so-called Serena Slam, which she also achieved over two seasons in 2002 and 2003.

 

But neither that run nor this one was the true Grand Slam, which requires a player to win the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the United States Open in the same calendar year.

 

Only three women have managed it: Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.

 

For the first time since Graf, someone will arrive at Flushing Meadows with the first three legs of the Grand Slam completed. Unlike Graf, a German, Williams will be playing at home.

 

 

“It would be really good to have this opportunity to go into New York being American with that amazing New York crowd,” Williams said. “Hopefully, people would be really cheering me on, to like push me over the edge and give me that extra strength I need to go for this historic moment.”

 

At this stage, history has become Williams’s major muse and only real rival. She is now 39-1 this season, although she has had plenty of anxious moments. The latest was her third-round match at Wimbledon, when she was two points from defeat against Heather Watson, a fast and unseeded British player with a clever game plan.

 

But Williams righted herself and then defeated three former No. 1 players — her sister Venus, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova — before overcoming Muguruza, a tall and big-hitting 21-year-old appearing in her first Grand Slam final who had upset Williams in the second round of last year’s French Open.

 

Despite the routine score line this time, victory did not come easily. Muguruza displayed few signs of nerves and plenty of clarity of purpose in the opening phase of the match and took a 4-2 lead in the first set before Williams grabbed the momentum.

 

Williams double-faulted three times in the opening game and lost her rhythm again as she served for the title at 5-1 in the second set.

 

With the Centre Court crowd strongly behind the underdog Muguruza, the Spaniard managed to break Williams twice in a row, saving a match point in the ninth game, and getting back on serve to 5-4.

 

But the rally (and the rallies) would soon end there as Muguruza lost her serve at love, missing a forehand wide on Williams’s second match point.

 

Source

[dequeen]

I love when Serena Williams wins because she loves winning, it excites her, Like she never gets bored or used to it. I love that. The way she lights up and smiles or shouts and that fist in the air. Epic!

[Calllaris]

She's the greatest tennis player of all time. Female/ male. I want to see Williams VS Federer.