Serena Williams completed a memorable day at the All England Club on Saturday, collecting her 14th Major women’s doubles title alongside elder sister Venus to go with her historic 22nd singles title that she won earlier. In a fabulous doubles contest that lasted 1 hour 27 minutes, the unseeded duo beat the fifth-seeded team of Yaroslava Shvedova and Timea Babos 6-3, 6-4 for their sixth crown on these hallowed lawns.
They are now a mind-boggling 14-0 in Grand Slam finals as a team.
Despite their glowing accomplishments in the world of tennis, they came into Wimbledon as an unseeded but very dangerous pair having not played at any Major since the US Open in 2014. Because of the upcoming Rio Olympics 2016, the three-time Olympic gold medallist team resumed playing again at the 2016 Italian Open, the last important tune-up before the French Open.
After a couple of stumbles on clay, they were back to their old, dominant selves at Wimbledon, showing no apparent rustiness. Clearly, the mutual trust and understanding that the sisters have in each other are strong enough to overcome any kind of opposition.
Shvedova, who is a former Wimbledon doubles champion herself, had been having a fine tournament with Babos, a runner-up in 2014. They had toppled the top seeds and defending champions Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis in the quarter-finals and were riding on sky-high confidence.
But against the force of the formidable Williams sisters, they could not bring up anything to smash through their barrier.
Serena and Venus converted three of their four break point opportunities while the Kazakh-Hungarian duo could only find 13% success on break point conversions. The fifth seeds, however, were the ones to draw first blood, going ahead 3-2 with a break.
But that was the only time they enjoyed a lead. The Americans immediately struck back and subsequently carved out another service break en route to taking the first set 6-3.
Scores were all even in the second set until Serena upped the intensity to secure a break for 4-3. It was just a matter of a few more minutes before the siblings claimed their first Major title since their 2012 Wimbledon triumph.
They are now in second place in the list of most Grand Slam titles in the Open Era with only Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver ahead of them with 20 crowns.
Mahut and Herbert men's doubles champions
Earlier in men’s doubles, top seeds Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert beat Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-4, 7-6 (1), 6-3 for their maiden Wimbledon crown and their second Grand Slam title overall. This was the first ever all-French final in this category in the Open Era.
Mahut and Herbert won the US Open last year.
Venus Williams and Father Richard recall one match that 7-time Grand Slam champion "should have won"
