Serena Williams, at 33 the oldest player to win a grand slam title in the modern era, says she has not finished breaking records after beating Garbiñe Muguruza 6-4, 6-4 to take her sixth Wimbledon singles title and 21st major.
She completed the fabled “Serena slam” – holding all the major championships simultaneously – in front of a frenzied Centre Court, starting with three double-faults in the first game and almost blowing a 5-1 lead in the second. But afterwards she set her sights on defending her US Open title in September title to complete a calendar year grand slam, which would be the first since Steffi Graf in 1988. If she does, she moves alongside Graf on 22 majors in the open era and two behind Margaret Court, whose 24 titles is the all-time best.
“I feel like I’ll be OK,” Williams said. “I feel like, if I can do the Serena slam, I will be OK heading into the grand slam. Like I always say, there’s 127 other people that don’t want to see me win. Nothing personal, they just want to win. I had a really tough draw here and this gives me confidence that I can do it again. I’ll just do the best I can.
“I really don’t feel like I have anything to lose. I’ve solidified my place at No1. My goal is always to end the year at No1. I honestly wouldn’t have thought last year after winning the US Open I would win the Serena slam at all. It’s super exciting.”
Williams, whose lateral movement is perhaps her one weakness, still hits extraordinarily hard and struck 12 aces to go with the 60 that got her to the final. “I do have some aches and pain but, overall physically, I feel better,” she said. “I feel fitter. I feel like I can do more than I did 10, 12, whatever years ago. I just keep reinventing myself in terms of working out, in terms of my game. It’s been working.
“I’ve never loved working out. When I started, I would always ride the bike, work on my legs. Then I started doing more running. Then I started doing more sprint work. At one point I was boxing. Every few years I’m always doing something different. If I was still running, I think I would just not want to do it anymore. I wouldn’t want to stay fit.
“Right now I’m dancing a lot, contemporary. It’s lots of movements, not super fast. It’s slow, not too slow… some times a lot of floor work.”
She said of Garbiñe Muguruza, who rises from No20 to No9: “She’s such a great player. She really stepped up to the plate. She came out there to win. She wasn’t out there just to play a final. That says a lot about her and about her future.”
Williams admitted that a year ago, her mental state was somewhere else. “Last year I was just so down because I lost so early in three of the grand slams. By the time New York came around [where she won her 18th major] I just wanted to get to the quarter-finals. When I won my fourth round match, I was elated. Since then, I’ve just been super relaxed, taking time every match.”
She had also “learned a lot” after finally winning four slams in a row. “I’ve learned that I’m able to do anything. Anyone’s able to do anything they set their mind to.”
Did she have a secret to winning 21 majors, six of them here? “The toughest thing to accomplish is just to stay in the moment. It’s easy to go out there and say, I want to win, then try to win. But you have to win seven matches. You have to win each match, you have to win each set, you have to win each point. It’s not anything that’s super easy.”
