serena williams

Congrats!! Serena Williams on your 5th Wimbledon title

LONDON — Under the requisite conflicted British sky, a summer’s brew of dark clouds, showers, and taunting bits of blue, Serena Williams on Saturday wavered much like the weather but ultimately proved right as rain, overcoming a second-set stumble to capture her fifth Wimbledon title, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, over rising Polish star Agnieszka Radwanska.


Her trademark service game spotty but also at times incredible, including a dazzling string of four aces early in the third set, Williams won for the first time here since 2010 and equaled the five Venus Rosewater plates won by her sister, Venus, from 2000-08.

Ebullient in triumph, and hugging the All England Club’s shimmering dish like a favorite stuffed animal, Williams told the sellout crowd at Centre Court, “I always wanted everything Venus had.’’

For the most part, Radwanska, at 23 seven years Williams’s junior, made it easy on the game’s most dominating female force. Hindered by a cold and sniffles in recent days, a jittery Radwanska opened with a weak, timid performance, leading her to lose nine of the first 11 games. It was her first time in a Grand Slam final and the unfortunate combination of nerves and a summer bug robbed her of her best.

“I am still shaking so much,’’ she said moments after the match ended, noting that the fortnight had been the best weeks of her life. “I didn’t play good, but I was happy to be here in the final . . . I think it was not my day. I will try next year.’’

Later, Radwanska added that nerves had been her greatest initial enemy. But when rain forced a 22-minute delay between the first and second sets, it was a more assured, calmer Radwanska who emerged from the dressing room.

“Yes, for sure, the break was good for me,’’ she said. “When I came out the second time, I felt it was like a normal match.’’

Radwanska, the junior champion here in 2005, was hoping to be only the fifth player to win both the junior and ladies titles. But her play in the early going was underpowered and off-kilter. Radwanska has made her name and her growing fortune (some $9.5 million thus far) because of her quick and clever moves and deft touch. She can’t serve like Williams (no one else can), but at her best she can win on guile, anticipation, and some sleight-of-hand magic around the net. She was often short on all those marks.

“I had some chances,’’ she lamented. “But she was too good.’’

Somewhat surprisingly, the match-making shot for Williams was something that she could have plucked from Radwanska’s survival manual. In the third set, with Radwanska fighting to hold serve in the seventh game, Williams stole it on the fourth break point, eschewing one of her riveting midrange forehands for, of all things, a rather delicate, perfectly spotted drop shot.Continued...