She played out of her mind! —Serena Williams

Heading for a record equalling grand slam title?

She is one of the greats in the women’s game and, like Roger Federer, is 37 years old. Not too old, like the Swiss star, to reach this year’s singles final at Wimbledon. Serena Williams had a baby last year, had some injury issues earlier in 2019 and was consequently seeded just eleventh in this year’s tournament. However, as often happens, the top ten women’s seeds dropped like flies and Serena made it through to the final.

Her trade mark fast serve, (the speediest in the women’s game), and  powerful, often tightly angled ground shots stood her in good stead though the six rounds needed to make the last two. Seventh seed Simona Halep was her opponent, a player she has beaten on the three previous occasions they had met in grand slams.  At stake for Williams was the chance to equal Australian legend Margaret Court’s record of 24 victories in majors. So there was plenty of incentive for her win the Wimbledon Ladies Singles for the seventh time.

Simona Halep on the improve

The Romanian won the French Open at Roland Garros in 2018, but since then her form has been up and down as her seventh seeding for this year’s Wimbledon would suggest. In earlier times she lacked a fast serve and her weak second deliveries, were easy picking for the likes of the powerful Williams. Halep also had a bad habit of frequently hitting returns straight back to her opponent, meaning she had to do plenty of scrambling round the court retrieving wide balls to try and stay in matches.

However, her coaching staff recognised the weaknesses, and have recently worked with Halep to make her more competitive. The Romanian made the final comfortably and thrashed the 15 year old American wonder-kid, Cori Gauff, in the fourth round. The new Halep now had a faster serve and was working on better placement of her ground strokes. Her athleticism, excellent court coverage and retrieving skills have never been in question, but had she improved enough to beat the very experienced, wily and powerful Williams?

The answer was an emphatic “Yes!”

Focus, fitness and finesse win the day

The result was an easy 6-2, 6-2 victory to Halep. Did Williams expect to do it in canter? She was far too relaxed and loose in the first set and seemed to be going for quick points. As a result she hit many balls, wide, long and into the net in an uncharacteristically sloppy display. Halep broke her serve in the first game, took Serena’s second for good measure, and held her own throughout. In no time the set was gone 6-2.

Simona was tightly focused and obviously determined not to be overawed by her more experienced opponent. She serves strongly, returned Williams fast first serves accurately and demonstrated her usual excellent retrieval skills. Above all, she worked Williams round the court and generally avoided returning straight back to her opponent.

In the second set the first five games went with service and the crowd was settling in for a three setter. There were glimpses of Serena’s legendary skills in her consistently rapid serve – 80% of first serves went in during the first set – some excellent volleys and cross-court placements, but there were still a number of sloppy unforced errors. Williams was often surprised that the athletic Halep was able to retrieve many wide balls, and frequently played poor shots in return. Halep also hit a number of clean winners and was ruthless in putting away any weak shots from her opponent. She only had three unforced errors in the match compared with Williams 30+.

So there was no miracle recovery for the American, and Halep took the match by taking Williams’ last two service games to duplicate the first set score. In so doing, the delighted Halep became the first Romanian to ever win at Wimbledon. She had previously struggled in the London tournament and didn’t feel secure or confident on grass, but she only had one slip in yesterday’s final.

“I never thought that I’m able to win on grass, with all these players that are very tall and serving with a lot of power,” she said. “But this year, I started to feel safe on court, which helped me a lot to believe.”