Angelique Kerber was not about to be overwhelmed by the setting or the stakes in this Wimbledon final. She knew exactly what to expect — and what to do — against Serena Williams.
Two years after losing to Williams with a title on the line at Center Court, Kerber came through. So steady, so patient, so accurate throughout, she never really gave Williams much of a chance this time, putting together a 6-3, 6-3 victory on Saturday for her first championship at the All England Club and third major overall.
“I think it’s the experience. You have to go through all the things — the good things, the bad things — and then you need to learn,” said Kerber, the first German to win Wimbledon since Steffi Graf in 1996.
Photo: AP
“I know that against Serena, I have to play my best tennis, especially in the important moments,” said Kerber, who won the Australian Open and US Open in 2016, but was runner-up to Williams at Wimbledon that season.
“Angelique played really well,” Williams said. “She played out of her mind.”
Kerber made only five unforced errors the entire match, 19 fewer than Williams. Perhaps more impressive was this: She broke Williams in four of nine service games.
In doing so, Kerber prevented Williams from claiming an eighth title at Wimbledon and 24th from all Grand Slam tournaments, which would have equaled Margaret Court’s record. As things stand, Williams holds the mark for the half-century of professional tennis, one ahead of Graf.
The final started more than two hours late, because they had to wait for the end of Novak Djokovic’s five-set victory over Rafael Nadal in a men’s semi-final that was suspended the night before.
Djokovic was to play Kevin Anderson yesterday — with the first serve in the final due at about press time last night — who won his semi-final against John Isner 26-24 in the fifth set on Friday night.
Nadal said it was an error to keep the Center Court roof closed as he lost an epic semi-final.
Nadal was defeated 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (11/9), 3-6, 10-8 in the second-longest semi-final ever played at the tournament, at 5 hours, 15 minutes.
It was a second day of epic drama at the All England Club after Anderson needed 6 hours, 36 minutes to beat Isner.
That set the record for the longest semi-final at the tournament and became the second-longest Grand Slam singles match ever played.
Djokovic and Nadal’s match was started under the roof and finished under it on Saturday, despite clear blue skies and temperatures hovering close to 30°C.
Asked if it was logical to have the roof closed, the world No. 1 said: “No, but I will not talk more about this. If I talk about it, then you are going to write about this, and I don’t want you to write about this today.”
He said that his semi-final should have been played before the Anderson-Isner match on Friday.
That semi-final only finished just before 8pm, making it impossible for Nadal and Djokovic to finish before the 11pm curfew.
“It’s true that the schedule was a little bit tight knowing that the first match was between two big servers,” said the 32-year-old. “Of course you can’t predict that they play that long, but, yeah, knowing that, maybe would be better if they play us first at 1[pm], that’s all.”
In the boys’ singles, Taiwan’s Tseng Chun-hsin defeated Jack Draper of the UK in the final yesterday.
Tseng, who turns 17 next month, won 6-1, 6-7 (2/7), 6-4 in 2 hours, 5 minutes, hitting eight aces to five.
Tseng reached the final with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over China’s Mu Tao, needing just 1 hour, 1 minute to dispatch his opponent.
Additional reporting by staff writer
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS