Serena eyes US Open after Wimbledon triumph

Having spent the last two weeks saying she would not talk about a possible Grand Slam, Serena Williams allowed herself a few moments to enjoy her sixth Wimbledon title before thoughts turned to New York and the elusive calendar year feat.
Williams belongs to an exclusive club of women who have held all four major titles at the same time, and achieved the so-called ‘Serena Slam’ for the second time with her 6-4 6-4 victory over Garbine Muguruza in Saturday’s Wimbledon final. But there is an even more prestigious gang who have won Wimbledon, the Australian, French and US Opens in the same calendar year and Williams wants in.
Only Maureen Connolly (1953), Margaret Court (1970) and Steffi Graf (1988) have achieved the Grand Slam, but Williams stands on the brink of joining them and victory at the U.S. Open in September will rubber stamp her membership. Like all great champions, it was not long after leaving Wimbledon’s hallowed turf before the American’s mind wandered to the new challenge.
“It took me a little while,” she joked. “I think when I did my interview… after the match, I did the whole presentation, I did the whole walk around the court. I was peaceful, feeling really good. Maybe a little after that I started thinking about New York.. “Then I just thought, ‘Oh, man, I’ve won New York three times in a row. I hope this isn’t the year that I go down’.”
At 33 years and 289 days, Williams is now in her own exclusive club as the oldest player in the professional era to clinch a grand slam title, surpassing Martina Navratilova by 26 days What makes her tally of 21 grand slam titles so remarkable is that eight have come after she turned 30, with no sign that her ability to pummel much younger opponents is on the wane.
In fact, the secret to her current stranglehold on the women’s game, might just be that she has been there, done it and bought the T-shirt. “I’ve just been super relaxed,” she said. “I’ve been taking time every match. I didn’t have an easy go this tournament, but I still just take it one match at a time… “I’ve learned a lot. That I’m able to do anything. Anyone’s able to do anything they really set their mind to.”
Before Serena Williams moves on from completing a second “Serena Slam” to pursuing tennis’ first true Grand Slam in more than a quarter-century, it’s worth pausing to appreciate what she’s done.

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First of all, there are the statistics. And what statistics they are:
— She’s won 21 Grand Slam titles; only Steffi Graf, with 22, has more in the Open era of professional tennis (the all-time record is Margaret Court’s 24).
— Her 6-4, 6-4 victory over Garbine Muguruza in Saturday’s final gave Williams six Wimbledon titles; only Martina Navratilova (with nine) and Graf (with seven) have more. Williams also has a half-dozen trophies each from the U.S. Open and Australian Open, along with three from the French Open.
— She’s won 28 Grand Slam matches in a row and four consecutive major titles over two seasons, something last done by — guess who? — Williams in 2002-03, when she coined the term “Serena Slam.”
— At 33, she is the oldest woman to win a major title in the Open era, nearly a month older than Navratilova was at Wimbledon in 1990.
It’s all impressive. And it all helps Williams believe she can continue this remarkable run at the U.S. Open, which begins in late August in New York. A trophy there would give Williams a calendar-year Grand Slam, which no one — not even Roger Federer — has accomplished in tennis since Graf did it in 1988.
Only two other women (Maureen Connolly in 1953, and Court in 1970) and two men (Don Budge in 1938, and Rod Laver in 1962 and 1969) have pulled off the feat, and none of them had to deal with the intense media scrutiny of this day and age.

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