INQUISITR.COM / Sports

Serena Williams On The Brink Of ‘Serena Slam’. Has She Become Unstoppable?

By Sola Egunjobi
Published on: 17:52 PST, Jul 9, 2015

The Serena Slam is still on! Serena Williams took a big step towards another grand slam title on Thursday after seeing off Maria Sharapova to book her place in Saturday’s final at Wimbledon. Williams’ straight set victory over Sharapova – her 17th straight defeat of the 4th seeded Russian – now sets up a final confrontation against 20th seeded first time finalist Garbine Muguruza – who beat Agniezska Radwanska to go through – and leaves the 32-year old American a firm favourite to claim her third grand slam title of 2015 and the 21st of her storied career.

To be sure, not many people will be betting against another win for Serena. It’s not just that this is new territory for her Spanish opponent – Williams will be playing her 25th grand slam final – but also because, on the evidence of her dominating brilliance over the past two weeks, its hard to imagine any player matching her on the court right now. That was very much at the fore again on Thursday, as she simply brushed aside Sharapova – holder of 5 grand slam titles – to win easily 6-2,6-4. Serena, on top of her game, is simply too hot to handle for even the very best players in tennis. Yet, it’s not the one sided, dominant displays that best exemplify what Serena is all about; it’s the come-from-behind, mental slugfests, games in which she has had to dig herself out of holes, that really underscore why Serena has become so hard to defeat.

There have been two examples of that at Wimbledon this year. British favourite Heather Watson, backed by a partisan crowd last Friday, had her on the ropes in the 3rd round, leading 3-0 in the third set, and Serena had to dig really deep to complete a 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 win. She had to tough it out again in the quarter finals, this time after going a set down to Victoria Azarenka. Again, she turned it around, finishing strongly to win 3-6.6-2,6-3. Go back even further, and Serena also won four matches at the French Open after dropping the first set in each.

Put simply: on a good day, she can’t be beat; on a bad day she can still find a way to win.

Yet, as ESPN points out, the 21-year old Muguruza could make things interesting for Serena on Saturday. For one thing, the up-and-coming Spaniard – she’s jumped from no. 112 to no. 9 in the last two years – has already beaten Serena in a grand slam match, knocking her out of last year’s French Open in a 2nd round shocker. She also took the first set in their last meeting, a 2-6,6-3,6-2 Serena win at the Australian Open in January – which means she’s already experienced Serena’s remarkable powers of recovery first hand.

Serena has now gone 28 matches since her last defeat at a grand slam tournament, at Wimbledon last June. Victory on Saturday will again give her custody of all four grand slam titles – she achieved that “Serena slam” back in 2003 – and her place in tennis history is already more than secure.

That she’s this dominant at her age makes her achievements even more remarkable, yet it also begs the question: how long can she keep this going? Muguruza might provide an inkling on Centre Court on Saturday, but the fact that anything other than another Serena win would be deemed an upset only suggests one thing.

There’s no beating Serena Williams right now.

(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Share this article: Serena Williams On The Brink Of ‘Serena Slam’. Has She Become Unstoppable?
More from Inquisitr