LONDON, (Reuters) – Serena Williams has Mozart and Frank Sinatra on her MP3 player but her tennis during yesterday’s one-sided women’s singles final at Wimbledon, as it has been all fortnight, was pure thrash metal.
The instant she cranked a forehand down the line and milked the applause down on one knee, fist clenched, her opponent Vera Zvonareva probably knew her dream moment on Centre Court had turned into mission impossible.
One effortless swing of the Williams racket was all it took to suck the belief from the 25-year-old Russian who until then had made a decent fist of staying with the American master blaster in her maiden grand slam singles final.
From 3-3 in the opening set when winner screamed off the Williams racket to seal the first service break of the match, the defending champion turned the showpiece into a glorified lap of honour, winning 6-3 6-2 in just over an hour.
Victory put her sixth on the all-time list of grand slam singles titles with 13, edging her above fellow American Billie Jean King who watched from the Royal Box alongside several other former Wimbledon champions.
“It means a lot because it’s 13. It’s kind of cool because I was able to pass Billie. That’s always nice,” the 28-year-old told reporters. “I don’t know where it rates. To have four Wimbledons is really, really exciting.”
Intimidatory Qualities
Even the onlooking Martina Navratilova who won 18 grand slam singles titles, including nine at Wimbledon, with a brand of tennis that had similar intimidatory qualities, must have been glad she was safely out of range of Serena’s serve.
Zvonareva, the second lowest-ranked player to reach the women’s singles final, was not so fortunate.
Before going out to play her women’s doubles final later the Russian said Serena’s thunderball serve which produced a record 89 aces this fortnight, could mess with your head.
“It’s not only that the shot is a weapon, it’s also in a way a mental weapon,” Zvonareva, who only failed to touch nine of Williams’ serves yesterday but found many more impossible to get back, told reporters.
As strokes go, the Williams serve is beginning to take on mythical proportions, rather like the Rafael Nadal forehand which will be unleashed on Centre Court against Tomas Berdych in Sunday’s men’s singles final.
It was not just the Williams serve that overwhelmed Zvonareva yesterday though — the top seed was faultless in every department.
On this form even sister Venus, who has five Wimbledon titles, would have struggled to live with her. Venus was home in Florida on Saturday after a surprise quarter-final exit, but she was there in name in the form of the Venus Rosewater Dish that her younger sister paraded around Centre Court for a fourth time.
Racket Skywards
“I’m just glad that I was able to win, especially that Venus lost. I really wanted a Williams sisters to go ahead and win it,” Serena, who celebrated victory by launching her racket skywards before saluting her sizeable entourage.
Zvonareva, who has battled back from ankle surgery, tried to match Williams for power in the early exchanges but it was a tactic she found impossible to sustain.
She got to deuce on the Williams serve at 1-1 but was repelled with an ace and that was about as close as she came to making a real match of it.
The Russian saved a break point at 2-3 with a pinpoint forehand but two games later the pressure coming from the other side of the net proved overwhelming.
A double-fault gave Williams one break point that she failed to convert but a superb topspin lob had Zvonareva flailing and the American moved 5-3 ahead when she rammed a forehand past her opponent.
From then on it was a procession with Williams winning 94 per cent of points when she found the mark with her first serve.
With another title stashed in her racket bag and no sign of her insatiable appetite for grand slams being satisfied, there seems no reason why Serena could not challenge the 18 of Navratilova and Chris Evert.
“I’m telling you, I don’t think about that kind of stuff,” she said. “My thing is I love my dogs, I love my family, I love going to the movies, I love reading, I love going shopping.”
“I would like to be remembered, ‘yeah, she was a tennis player, but she really did a lot to inspire other people and help other people’. That’s what I think about, not about Serena Williams won X amount of grand slams.”
