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Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Decade's Best: 2016 Wimbledon

In 2016, seventeen years after Steffi Graf retired with an Open era record 22 career slam titles, she finally had company in the form of one Serena Williams.



==NEWS & NOTES==
Serena Williams' ten month-long slam title drought finally came to an end in London, where she closed out a tough 2nd Round match (down 2-0 in the 3rd set vs. Christina McHale) with three straight aces and never looked back en route to her seventh Wimbledon crown, turning the tables on her Australian Open conqueror Angelique Kerber to successfully defend her Ladies championship.


Williams had been one title-less Wimbledon away from being shut-out of being the reigning champion at any of the slams for the first time in four years. Over the span of the fortnight, she notched career slam match win #300, reached 300 weeks in the #1 ranking during her career, fired her 800th ace at the All-England Club, held serve in 30 straight games without facing a break point and finally tied Steffi Graf's record of 22 slam wins in the Open era. At 34, Williams also broke her own record (set a year ago) as the oldest SW19 singles champ.


The final was a high-quality, 7-5/6-4 affair in which both sets were determined by just a few points in the final games, as Williams lifted her level of play at the moment of truth, getting the contest's only breaks of serve in game #12 in the 1st and #9 in the 2nd. Williams and Kerber's second slam final meeting of '16 marked the first time two players had faced off for major titles in the same season since 2006 (Mauresmo/Henin).
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Kerber had spent the fortnight continuing her role in establishing a "new paradigm" for WTA success, one in which a player can peak in her late twenties, be intelligent enough to both know what she needs to do with her career in order to take the next logical step AND be willing to follow through on the plan. She'd come to Melbourne in January off a '15 season in which she'd shined like never before on the regular tour, but had found little success at the slams despite having reached two major semifinals in her career. By adding seamless aggression to her defensive game, and remaining determined and fearless enough to not abandon the gameplan in the heat of battle, she rose through the ranks Down Under and grabbed her maiden slam title at the Australian Open, adding her name to the short list of players who have defeated Serena in a slam final. The German's success had been hit-and-miss since, as she'd often been hampered by injuries for months. But, finally healthy, Kerber spent the two weeks in London rediscovering her Melbourne mojo. While everyone was busy watching Serena, her sister Venus and various other developing stories, Kerber motored along on the equivalent of a traffic-less Autobahn, never dropping a set and taking out two Top 8 seeds (#5 Halep, #8 Venus) en route to her second slam final of the year.


Kerber would go on to have a career year, finishing at #1 while reaching the Australian, Wimbledon, Olympic, U.S. and WTAF finals in 2016.
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With her standing atop the game once again fully backed up by another "date" the Venus Rosewater dish, Serena then joined with her *sister* Venus and swept through the doubles (winning 12 of 13 sets) for career doubles slam title #14 (their sixth at Wimbledon) as they played in the event for the first time since Serena's odd, stumbling "virus-related" exit from the WD two years earlier.


The vision of the sisters, shoulder-to-shoulder, on a doubles court together hadn't been a common one of late, largely due to Venus' Sjogren's-related issues, unless it was Serena's advancement into the latter stage of slam singles competition (and the inevitable w/d from doubles). 2016's Wimbledon title run, completed with a victory over Timea Babos & Yaroslava Shvedova, came in what was only their ninth appearance in a slam in twenty-four majors (they'd won six of the previous nine slams prior to that). It gave them a spotless 14-0 career mark in slam finals and moved them into a tie with G.Fernandez/Zvereva for the second-most slam titles in the Open era behind Navratilova/Shriver (20).

Heading into the '19 U.S. Open. they've only played in one other slam WD competition the rest of the decade.

For her part, Venus had a resurgent singles performance at the AELTC, too. At 36, she added yet another successful chapter to her long Wimbledon history, turning back the clock to post her best result at SW19 since 2009 while becoming the oldest singles semifinalist since Martina Navratilova's turn as a finalist in 1994.


The #8 seed, Venus tied Amy Frazier for the WTA tour record of 71 career slam MD appearances, then proceeded to defeat #29 Dasha Kasatkina in a 10-8 3rd st in the 3rd Round, then #12 Carla Suarez-Navarro a round later.

Before the U.S. Open had rolled around later that summer, Williams had also added a fifth career Olympic medal in Rio, picking up a Silver in MX doubles with Rajeev Ram.
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Perhaps the best "single match" performance of the tournament came from two-time champ Petra Kvitova.

Kvitova -- aka "Merciless Petra" -- destroyed wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time Sorana Cirstea in the 1st Round. The Czech opened the match by breaking the Romanian. She held at love to take a 3-0 lead after just seven minutes. Eight minutes later, Kvitova closed out a love set win in FIFTEEN minutes with an ace to hold at love again. In all, it was Kvitova's third love game of the set, an opening stanza in which she won 24 of 28 points, losing as many as two in a single game just once. Cirstea played better in the 2nd set, which lasted :38. She at least let it be known that she wasn't going to be simple roadkill, as in the opening game the Swarmette saved two break points and held in a three-deuce game. But Kvitova went up 40/15 in game #5 and got the 3-2 break advantage that she never relinquished. She won 6-0/6-4 in :53, losing just two points on her 1st serve on the day and eight total points on serve. She never faced a BP, and committed just eight unforced errors.

Let me repeat that... Petra Kvitova committed just eight unforced errors. Not in a stretch of play between changeovers, either. In a single match.

Of course, this was a "single match" performance award because, well, two-time SW19 champ Kvitova ended up losing one round later to Ekaterina Makarova in a straight-sets match pushed back, interrupted and delayed for days because of the rainy first week Wimbledon weather.

Oh, Petra.
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Aga Radwanska was destined to never have her Wimbledon dream finish become reality, but her second week run in '16 produced a trio of memorable matches, all for different reasons.

In the 2nd Round, #3 Radwanska looked ready to be toppled by #123 Ana Konjuh. The Croat held three MP, with Aga needed a lucky net cord to survive. Then Konjuh stepped on a ball and severely rolled her ankle with the match tied at 7-7 in the 3rd set. She couldn't recover. Radwanska quickly held and then broke Konjuh, who could hardly move, a game later to win a 9-7 final set.



On the Middle Sunday, Radwanska bossed 20-year old Katerina Siniakova, winning their 3rd Rounder 6-3/6-1 in an extended display of "Classic Aga." The frustrated Czech tried with all her might, will and considerable talent to dent the Radwanska exterior, but it was all of no use. She likely had nightmares with Aga's face appearing on every horrible beast her subconscious could dream up all summer long.

Aga was, as she often is, simply naturally brilliant while seemingly barely breaking a sweat throughout the day. At one point she ran off twelve straight points to take a 5-2 lead in the 1st, pulling off a series of amazing shots made to look casually achieved with deft angles, soft wrists and expert anticipation working to create one of those "perfect Radwanska storms" that she was known for. Once again, it was a joy to watch.



But the pièce de résistance would be her clash with Dominika Cibulkova

A Round of 16 match that expertly doubled as performance art, it was a contest permeated with a menagerie of rallies that highlighted both touch and power, as well as unyielding tenacity, stubborn insistence and, naturally, a touch of magic dust (we ARE talking about a Radwanska match, after all). In the latter stages of its three-hour length, the shifting-in-momentum, marathon battle of wills left one of the most fit players on tour often bending over in exhaustion, and sometimes going so far as to roll over flat on her back and wish for it all to end. As long as she was declared the winner.

As it turned out, Cibulkova got her wish.

The two had already faced off in a trio of intriguing matches that season. In Indian Wells, Radwanska overcame Cibulkova's power shots and a 5-2 3rd set deficit, saving a MP and winning 7-5. In Madrid, the Pole recovered from a set and 5-3 deficit to force a 3rd, then saw Cibulkova erase a break lead there and emerge the victor. Just before their Wimbledon clash, in Eastbourne, Radwanska led by a set and 2-0 when rain put a stop to her momentum, then the two returned a day later and Cibulkova broke back and pulled out the match.

In this one, Cibulkova served for the match, only to see Radwanska saved a MP and force a 3rd set as the two women would open up the throttle and go full out the rest of the way, with both consistently grabbing leads on their opponent's serve only to see them then steer the momentum back in their favor. Radwanska held a MP in the final set, but the Slovak denied her a chance to celebrate. Cibulkova got a second chance to serve for the match and, finally, on her third MP, Cibulkova's forehand winner (her 56th winner of the match, to Aga's own high count of 37) into the corner sealed a 6-3/5-7/9-7 victory... and gave birth to a million stories that would last a lifetime.



While Cibulkova celebrated, Radwanska gave little hint of the likely emotional turmoil roiling inside her as, once again, she had failed to get the most out of a Wimbledon experience and came up short in her career quest for an elusive grand slam title. She warmly hugged the Slovak at the net.

We didn't know it at the time, but Radwanska would only play six more matches at Wimbledon in her career, which would wrap up before the end of the decade, leaving her as likely the tournament's most creative player ever, but with no lap around Centre Court with the Venus Rosewater dish to commemorate all she brought to the table over a stretch of 13 appearances.

[NOTE: I'd include a few clips of some of the many spectacular points and shots from these match-ups, but it appears as if all video evidence of the matches has been wiped clean from Twitter and YouTube. Because, I guess, why would anyone allow people to see great moments from the recent past that amounts to free publicity when you can hoard it in a corner, maintaining ownership rights to something that no one will ever see again, right?]
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Draw notes:

* - due to continual first week rain, there was play on the Middle Sunday ("People's Sunday") for the first time since 2004


* - having won two doubles and a mixed title at majors, Russian Elena Vesnina reached her maiden slam *singles* semifinal at SW19 in '16. The only set she lost en route came in the 4th Round vs. doubles partner Ekaterina Makarova (Vesnina won a 9-7 3rd). She ultimately fell at the mighty hands of Serena (or should it be at the hands of the mighty Serena? Hmmm.), then later that same day lost with Makarova in the WD QF vs. Serena again, this time with Venus by her side. Vesnina was the 12th different Russian in the post-USSR era to reach a slam semi, but (so far) the *only* one to do so this decade since Sharapova at the 2015 Wimbledon.


* -
Ana Ivanovic played her final Wimbledon match. Seeded #23, the Serb
lost 6-2/7-5 to #223 Ekaterina Alexandrova. The Russian had been the last player into qualifying, and had to win 14-12 and 13-11 3rd sets just to reach her maiden slam MD. Ivanovic, the former #1 and '08 Roland Garros champ, reached the semis at Wimbledon in '07, but never reached the QF stage again at SW19 in her final nine appearances. It was a pattern that held up over the course of her career, as in her first 14 slams she won one and reached two more finals, as well as a SF and QF. In the following 34 until her retirement at the end of 2016, she posted just one SF (in Paris in '15, seven years after her title run) and two QF finishes.

* - Anastasija Sevastova, back from a two-year retirement, played in her first Wimbledon since 2011, while Vicky Duval utilized her protected ranking to return to the SW19 MD two years after she'd qualified and won a 1st Round match after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. She lost in the 1st Round to Dasha Kasatkina, the '14 RG girls champ who made her Wimbledon debut in 2016. The Russian reached the 3rd Round, dropping a 10-8 3rd set to Venus Williams.

* - the event was played without Maria Sharapova (suspended) and Victoria Azarenka (knee) for the first time in fourteen years... fifteen if you count Sharapova's run to the girls final in 2002. Azarenka would announce her pregnancy in July and miss the rest of the season, and only played one major ('17 Wimb.) between then and the '18 RG after a long custody battle for her son prevented her from traveling outside the United States. Sharapova wouldn't play in London again until 2018, and would close out the decade without a MD win at Wimbledon since '15.


* - Yaroslava Shvedova reached her first career slam singles QF (at #96, she was sixth-lowest ranked woman to go so far), advancing to the final eight with wins over two seeds (future semifinalist #17 Svitolina, and '14 semifinalist #28 Safarova), a former Wimbledon finalist (Lisicki) and a future SW19 semifinalist (Goerges). She lost there to Venus Williams, but added a run to the women's doubles final (w/ Timea Babos) that included a win over defending champs Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza. That run, too, ended at the hands of Venus, who teamed with Serena to win the final in straight sets.

In the SW19 mixed with Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, she reached another semifinal.

* - Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova only reached the QF in doubles, but they previously shared a court in singles in the 1st Round. In a rare match-up of one half of the duo vs. the other, Safarova lost a 3-1 1st set lead as Mattek took the stanza in a TB. Mattek led 5-3 and held a MP in the 2nd, but the Czech won a second TB to force a deciding 3rd set. There, Mattek held two more MP at 5-3, but Safarova surged back to sweep the final games, winning 7-5 in 2:48.

* - Playing in just her fifth career slam MD, six months after reaching the AO Round of 16, Russian Margarita Gasparyan was forced to retire in the 2nd set of her 1st Round match vs. Denisa Allertova. After doing a split step in the middle of the court, Gasparyan has hurt her knee in the opening set. She wouldn't play another slam match for over two years after undergoing three knee surgeries while trying to recover from the injury. She eventually did, winning her first tour title in three years in 2018, returning to the Top 100, recording her first two career Top 10 wins, and then finally returning to Wimbledon in 2019. In the 2nd Round, she led #8 Elina Svitolina (against whom she'd recorded Top 10 win #2 two weeks earlier on the grass) by a set and was serving at 5-4 in the 2nd. She was two points from the win when severe cramps sent her to the ground, eventually leading to her retirement two games later while still leading the match.


* - a year after upsetting reigning semifinalist Simona Halep, Slovak Jana Cepelova (who'd qualified to reach the MD), knocked off '15 finalist Garbine Muguruza in the 2nd Round in a match that lasted just 58 minutes. In three years, Cepelova had posted three Top 3 wins over S.Williams, Halep and Muguruza.



#124 Cepelova ultimately lost a 12-10 3rd set to Lucie Safarova in the 3rd Round, after having served for the win at 5-3 in the 3rd and holding a MP at 9-8. She's yet to win another slam MD match since.

* - 20-year old Ash Barty, back from a 16-month sabbatical during which she played professional cricket in Australia, picked up the momentum of her slow comeback rollout as she participated at Wimbledon in her first slam matches since her February '17 return. She'd been playing only doubles until the grass season, during which she reached the semis of a $50K and the QF in the tour-level Nottingham event. The 2011 SW19 girls champ was given a WC into Wimbledon qualifying, where she lost in the second round to Luksika Kumkhum. She played in the Wimbledon doubles with Laura Robson, but lost in the 1st Round.


In less than three years, Barty would win a slam title (RG) and become the #1-ranked player in the world.
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As for the Brits, it wasn't a good Wimbledon. At least not in the singles competition.

The signs were apparent even during qualifying, as the opening round saw Freya Christie lose to Risa Ozaki in a 3:42 match that took place over two days. Christie led 5-3 in the 3rd and held MP's, but lost 6-7(7)/7-6(4)/7-5. A round later, Katie Boulter blew a 6-4/5-0 lead (w/ MP) and lost to Rebecca Peterson. A round after *that*, Harriet Dart, lost a 13-11 3rd set to Ekaterina Alexandrova (who'd won a 14-12 3rd set a round earlier).

Laura Robson again was in the MD as a wild card, for the sixth time in seven career appearances since 2009. Five years after Robson upset Angelique Kerber in the 2011 1st Round, she lost to the German this time by a 2 & 2 scoreline. Meanwhile, Heather Watson lost a 12-10 3rd set to Annika Beck in another star-crossed 1st Round match for a Brit. One year after nearly upsetting Serena Williams at SW19, coming within two points of victory, Watson failed to convert three MP in a match that took two days to complete.

The only Brits to escape the first round were Tara Moore and Johanna Konta, the latter at #16 the first British woman to be seeded at Wimbledon since 1984.

But all hope was not dashed.

After her disappointing singles effort,, Heather Watson ended her fortnight in London with a flourish. After she and Henri Kontinen advanced through the first two MX rounds via walkover, they upset defending MX champs Martina Hingis & Leander Paes (from off completing a Career Slam in Paris) in the 3rd Round and went on to win the title (def. Anna-Lena Groenefeld & Robert Farah in the final). Watson became the first British woman to win the crown since Jo Durie in 1987.


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A quarterfinalist in 2011-12, Tamira Paszek was seeking her third consecutive successful SW19 Q-run. The Austrian held MP at 5-4 in the 2nd set of her Q3 match with Czech Andrea Hlavackova, only to turn her ankle in the game and fail to put away the win. Hlavackova forced a 3rd set, where Paszek again took the lead at 5-3 before the Czech took the match even deeper before starting to cramp. She took a medical timeout at 8-8, and both players were treated simultaneously during the 9-8 changeover. Ultimately, Hlavackova couldn't go on and collapsed flat on her back after being forced to retire down 10-9.






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With the lingering after effects of 2013's "Black Wednesday" Day 3 massacre *still* lingering at the All-England Club, 2016's third day of the fortnight saw London rains lead, of the 74 singles and doubles matches scheduled, to 41 being cancelled, 15 interrupted and just 18 completed. Only 6 matches were both started and finished solely on Day 3, with four of those played under the Centre Court roof.

Meanwhile, Aga Radwanska opened the Centre Court schedule and won without incident and, in a previously unscheduled C.C. match, Radwanska's '16 RG conqueror, Tsvetana Pironkova, lost in 1st Round at Wimbledon for the third straight year.
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Anastasia Potapova claimed the Wimbledon Girls title, defeating Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska in a final in which the last game of the match saw the 15-year old Russian fight off two BP, overcome two MP being overturned via replay and ultimately win on her seventh MP of the game. Her win made her the fourth different Hordette to win a junior slam since the start of 2014, the second straight to win Wimbledon (Sofya Zhuk '15), and the fourth Russian girl to lift the SW19 girls title since the fall of the Soviet state.



In the girls doubles, Bannerettes Usue Arconada & Claire Liu defeated the Georgian/U.S. duo of Mariam Bolkvadze & Caty McNally. Arconada/Liu were the first all-U.S. girls doubles champs at SW19 since Jennifer Capriati & Meredith McGrath in 1989.

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After having become the top-ranked women's wheelchair player in the world in 2015, 31-year old Jiske Griffioen was the winner of Wimbledon's inaugural WC singles competition in 2016, claiming career slam singles title #4 (over a six slam stretch starting with the '15 AO). Griffioen defeated her Dutch countrywoman (and doubles partner) Aniek Van Koot in a three-set final, coming back from a set down to get the win.

Later that summer, Griffioen won the singles and doubles Golds at the Paralympic Games in Rio, giving her at least one title in every major WC competition (s/d in the slams, year-ending Masters and Paralympics) save for the U.S. Open singles, where she'd finished as the runner-up five times between 2007-15. The Wimbledon and Paralympics singles wins would turn out to be the final major singles title Griffioen would win (she'd take the AO doubles the following January) before she retired in October '17. She held the #1 spot in singles for 106 weeks between 2015-17.

In the women's doubles, Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley teamed up to three-peat as the SW19 champs, claiming their eighth slam title as a pair by defeating Griffioen & Van Koot in a third consecutive Wimbledon final. Four years earlier, they'd met for the crown with the Dutch duo taking home the honors.

Championssssssss!!!!!! #wimbledon2016 #3times ???????? it's a hat-trick!!!!!

A photo posted by Jordanne Whiley (@jordanne_joyce) on


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In the Invitation doubles competition, Martina Navratilova was a Wimbledon champion yet again. At age 59 (months from her 60th later that summer at the U.S. Open, which would mark the ten-year anniversary of her final pro slam title in the Mixed Doubles in 2006, 32 years after she'd won her first slam crown in 1974). She and Selima Sfar won the final over Lindsay Davenport & Mary Joe Fernandez after taking a 1st set TB 7-5, and then Davenport essentially forced MJF to retire in order to not hurt herself seriously. Fernandez had injured her left leg just prior to the TB, but eschewed any medical attention and went ahead and played the breaker. But she could barely move around the court, limping and hunched over.


The oldest to claim the Invitation event trophy, this was Martina's third win, with the others coming in 2009 (w/ Helena Sukova) and '10 (w/ Jana Novotna)... before Martina Hingis entered the fray and won three straight titles (2011-13 w/ Davenport) before heading back to the regular tour and putting together a *second* Hall of Fame-worthy career there.

Navratilova would win the Invitation title again in 2017 with Cara Black, and they'd win another in '19.
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SEEN AT THE AELTC:

Nike's controversial "babydoll" dress...





Beckhams...



Royals...


Beyonce and Jay Z...


Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter...


Natalie Portman...


Diane Keaton...


Bethanie Mattek-Sands' fringe..


Ellen DeGeneres, Maisie Williams and Portia de Rossi...


And this girl...


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[from "The Fingerprints of Greatness" - July 9, 2016]

It sometimes seems as if Serena Williams has been chasing SOMETHING for nearly two decades.

First, it was her sister Venus. For a long time, it sort of seemed like the new "rabbit" in the race was acceptance by the masses. While there were still pockets of resistance on that front, the next hurdle to clear eventually became Billie Jean, then Chrissie & Martina. More recently, it's been Steffi. Along the way, she's caught whatever, and whomever, she's chosen to pursue (well, except for that one thing... darn you, Roberta Vinci!).

In her latest Wimbledon final, Williams earned still more warranted grace as another meaningful target fell.



At 34 and having last month lost consecutive slam finals for the first time in her career, Williams came into the third major of 2016 with her career-long reputation intact, but with doubt about her ability to sustain her continued, taken-for-granted level of excellence nibbling at the edges of the collective tennis consciousness. No one was rightly expecting anything "bad," and wouldn't hold it against our memory of her if it was suddenly her new "slightly-downgraded" reality, but we didn't necessarily EXPECT her to resemble her old self at the end of two weeks, either. If Williams lost on Saturday, it'd be for a (new) record third straight major final, and she'd fail to be the reigning champion at at least one major at any given time for the first time in four years. The last time that had been the case Serena was a little more than year beyond suffering a life-threatening hematoma and a pulmonary embolism, had just suffered her worst-ever slam loss in the 1st Round in Paris, and was in just her first year as a "thirtysomething," rather than looking around the corner at 35 as she would have been tomorrow. Even by "new" tennis standards, circa 2016, that would indeed be a case of entering into uncharted territory.

Early on at this slam, Williams was challenged by countrywoman Christina McHale in the 2nd Round, dropping the 1st set. She ultimately ended that match in very Serena-esque fashion, firing three straight aces to close out the win. From that moment forward, she'd resembled the Serena we've come to recognize -- and opponents fear -- for so long.

** ** **

What resulted was a match of high quality, with relatively little standing between the two players. One point here or there stood a chance to swing the balance of power far enough to determine which woman would seize the advantage in a set. Both the 1st and 2nd stanzas of the match seemed to hurtle toward an unsure conclusion. Well, until the final stages when, while Williams lifted her game another notch, Kerber flinched just enough to allow Serena to shove her shoulder through the door and raid yet another grand slam trophy case.

** ** **

When the German couldn't get back another wide serve a point later Williams reached triple championship point. Another wide serve, this one accompanied by a net approach and a volley winner (her 39th winner on the day) made Serena a slam singles champ for the 22nd time, tying Steffi Graf for Open era preeminence and adding yet another line item to her career resume with a 7-5/6-4 victory.




Williams fell to her back in front of the net, and almost comically threw her legs into the air. Though she didn't betray any evidence of its continued existence at this slam, it was clear that the pressure that had been mounting inside her since her semifinal loss at the U.S. Open last summer had finally been relieved. After a warm meeting with Kerber at the net, Serena flashed a pair of "2's" with her fingers. It didn't take a mathematician to catch the significance of the digits.





** ** **

after a career filled with instances of difficulty and commotion, tragedy and near-tragedy, a steady stream of controversy and, last but not least, almost unfathomable and enduring success, Serena doesn't really need to chase any mere mortal ever again. Not that she's ever really NEEDED to, no matter how much she may have gotten caught up in it all as she's hand-picked a series of numerical targets in order to provide a tangible goal to motivate her to even more accomplishments than she'd already carved out in a remarkable career that now goes back nearly two decades.

But, over time, it's become about so much more than just numbers, for the "acceptance" part of the "chase" always seems to rear its head every time she knocks down another wall.

Over the past season and week, as she's moved closer to another historical feat, Serena has had to continue to deal with all the same lingering questions of equality and respect on numerous fronts. She's handled it all with grace and class (and a bit of Williams-level bite), far more than can be said of those who choose to openly speak against her or offer up an insinuation that HER accomplishments may not be as worthy or valuable as those of others simply because of the presence or absence of a Y chromosome.

Williams, along with her sister and others, may still have to fight interminable, sometimes less-apparent battles, but HER true gains and victories likely won't be fully seen and/or understood until after her tennis career is over, for it will be then that we'll see her legacy live on in all the girls and boys, within tennis and without, who will be able to use her ability to battle against so many opposing forces as a means to discovering their own inspiration to overcome whatever battle they may face. Be it within themselves, or versus outside forces maddeningly slow to see the light. Serena has carved out a legacy by doing it her way for most of the last twenty years, and there's no reason to think that will change anytime soon ever change.

Good for her, and for us.

While some walks are swift and instantly gratifying, others are comparably slow, and with a hard-earned concluding goal maybe not capable of being experienced by all involved in the long fight. But on that day, whenever it comes, Serena can rightly expect that her fingerprints will be able to be found there.

In fact, they'll be found everywhere.






==QUOTES==
* - "Retiring is the easy way out. I don't have time for easy." - Venus Williams

* - "It was the toughest match for me, I would say, my whole career." - Aga Radwanska, on her loss to Dominika Cibulkova

* - "I don't think anyone feels older. You have this infinity inside of you that feels like you could go on forever." - Venus Williams

* - "Sometimes when you are fighting, sometimes you want something so bad, it can hinder you a little bit. Now I'm just a little bit more calm. (It) doesn't mean that I have less competitive[ness] at all. I think confidence brews peace and calm in champions. I think that's how I feel.” - Serena Williams

* - "I know that 20 years ago she won here the last time. Of course, I will try to be the next one to win here after Steffi." - Angelique Kerber, on Steffi Graf being the last German to win Wimbledon

* - "For me, it's about obviously holding the trophy and winning, which would make it a better accomplishment for me. For me, it's not enough. But I think that's what makes me different. That's what makes me Serena." - Serena Williams
























All for now.
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