When she was born to her parents (on September 26, 1981), little did Richard Williams and Oracene Price know that the youngest of their 5 daughters will reach out to all the records in Grand Slam. Today, just around two and half months away from her 35th birthday, she’s already sharing record with Stefanie Graf, another great player from the world of tennis- 22 Grand Slam Singles titles. Margaret Court of Australia holds the overall record for Grand Slam titles, 24 from 1960 to 1973.
She’s already a legend with this record, without even a mention of her 13 Grand Slam wins in Women’s Doubles and 2 wins at Mixed Doubles.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) had published its Olympic Book “My Life, My Medals“, which has been a compilation of Olympic Medal moments of one hundred and eighteen tennis players from 1988 Seoul Olympics till London 2012- this was the last time the two all-time greats of Women tennis were remembered together.
Serena had not won a major championship since last year’s Wimbledon, losing in the semifinals at the 2015 United States Open and the finals at the Australian and French Opens this year.
To make up for it, here was the Williams, in action and the opponent Angelique Kerber, the No. 4 seed, couldn’t do else than giving a stiff competition in the first set. Serena ended the match with a 7-5, 6-3 win over the German to acquire her 22nd Grand Slam.
The German, Keber who will ascend to No. 2 on Monday, entered the final having not lost even a set at Wimbledon, and then she met Williams who’s rising from one milestone to another, determined to pick all the records from Tennis courts.
The American Professional Tennis player has insisted that “22 has never been my goal,” but despite reaching three Grand Slam finals in a row this year, she had not been able to reach it. After getting her 22nd, Williams said it had been “incredibly difficult” not to think about Graf’s record.
Speaking about the win, and the record, she said, “It makes the victory even sweeter to know how hard I worked for it.”
She was back at her best performance, the way she left it at Wimbledon, last year and as usual, it was her serve that blew the opponent away. She hit 13 aces, lost only five points on her first serve, and faced just one break point. Out of all her serves on Saturday, Forty-three percent went unreturned.