HAL STORMS
Serena’s crushed as seventh seed Simona plays the match of her life LAPTHORNE ROCKED BY CRUSHING DEFEAT
AS Serena Williams stood on Centre Court, spending almost as much time in the post- final formalities as she had in the match, it felt like the beginning of the end.
Seventeen years after the first of her seven titles here, there was a sense of a curtain starting to fall on a remarkable Wimbledon career.
This, primarily, should be about
S imona Hal e p p r oduc i n g as perfectly executed a performance as you could possibly witness.
This should be about the Romanian’s journey to a first
Wimbledon crown
( right), about her blurring speed, about the match of her life.
This should be about her emotional gratitude to her tearful mother and her wonderment at winning the ultimate prize in one of sport’s most iconic arenas.
And it IS about all of that.
Yet such was the crushing nature of the demolition, it was hard not to wonder if this was the last chance of Williams adding to her 23 Grand Slams.
Serena was having absolutely none of it, of course. She talked of being at Wimbledon for another “three, four, five years”, she spoke of “going in the right direction”, she insisted her fitness was fine and she was excited by the hard court season ahead.
She said: “I feel like I’m still incredibly competitive or else I wouldn’t really be out here. When someone plays lights out, there’s really not much you can do.”
And let’s not forget Williams had blazed her way to a third Grand Slam final in the past two years.
But she has lost all three and has a lot to share her time with away from the court, not least her daughter Olympia who turns two in September.
She will be 38 in a couple of months time and, as well as Williams played up until yesterday, Halep m made her look every day o of her years.
“I have never played a b better match,” said s seventh seed Halep.
“It was my mum’s d dream. She said when I was 10 that if I want to do something in tennis it is to play in the Wimbledon final. I told people in the locker room that if I win, I will get membership for life.
“It was one of the motivations for me.”
Life membership, not to mention the £2.35million first prize, was never in doubt from the moment the 27-year-old, quite literally, sped into a 4-0 first set lead. Remarkably, it became a 56-minute minute 6-2 6-2 formality.
Amidst her joy, Halep was suitably uitably gracious towards her opponent.
She said: “Serena has always ays inspired us so thanks for that.”
Williams has proved doubters wrong many times before, and will probably do so again but it will take a remarkable effort to get that 24th major triumph.
The brilliance of this year’s wonderful Wimbledon winner told us that. ANDY LAPTHORNE was close to tears after the Brit lost in straight sets to Dylan Alcott in Wimbledon’s first-ever quad wheelchair singles final.
The Aussie top seed thrashed Lapthorne (left) 6-0 6-2.
He said: “Dylan was far too good, he’s probably the best player I’ve ever played. If he’s on like that and I’m not, then fair play to him.”
Britain’s men’s wheelchair doubles pair Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid lost in straight sets to Joachim Gerard and Stefan Olsson in the final.
The defending champions were well beaten 6-4 6-2 by the 2019 Australian Open winners.
In the ladies’ wheelchair singles final, Aniek Van Koot edged out fellow Dutch rival Diede De Groot.
In the invitational doubles, British duo Jeremy Bates and Andrew Castle beat Chris Wilkinson and Mansour Bahrami.
In the boys’ doubles,
Brits Arthur Fery and
Toby Samuel missed out on a place in the final after losing to Laim Draxl and Govind Nanda.