Serena Williams willed herself to a 20th grand slam title on Saturday as she fought off nerves and a valiant opponent in Lucie Safarova to claim her third French Open crown. Having led by a set and 4-1, 40-15 on her own serve, Williams imploded to lose it on a tie-break but as she has done so many times in her career, she found something from within, recovering from 2-0 down in the decider to clinch a 6-3, 6-7 (2-7), 6-2 victory.
Having won the Australian Open at the start of the year, Williams is now halfway to the calendar year grand slam and after winning here despite struggling with the flu for much of the second week, few would put it past the 33-year-old from adding Wimbledon and the US Open to complete the set. The victory moves Williams to within two wins of Steffi Graf in the all-time list of grand slam champions and four behind the record-holder Margaret Court but even by her standards, win No20 was a struggle.
After coughing and spluttering her way through her semi-final, Williams had been too ill to practice on Friday but she looked much more like her normal self as she broke once to win the first set and then romped to a 4-1, 40-15 lead in the second.
Suddenly, nerves crept in and after two double faults gave Safarova one break back, another one handed back the other. Williams regained her poise to break for 6-5 and at 30-15 she was only two points from victory. But Safarova, continuing to go for her shots, broke back brilliantly to force a tie-break and then won it 7-2 to force a decider.
By this stage, Williams was letting rip with a string of swear words and her mood only darkened when she was broken in the second game as Safarova led 2-0. The Czech, in her first grand slam final, then double-faulted to hand back the break for 2-2 and Williams held her serve to move ahead at 3-2 before being belatedly warned for audible obscenities.
The tide had turned, though, and Williams broke again for 4-2 when Safarova sent a backhand long and after holding in the following game, Williams crunched another return winner to clinch another remarkable victory.
