They came one match short of the maximum they could, between them, have played in the events they entered at this year’s Wimbledon and it said everything about their dominance in the women’s game that the Williams sisters almost seemed to claim another doubles title by accident.
Their 6-3, 6-4 defeat of Hungary’s Timea Babos and Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova was their first Grand Slam victory as a partnership since this same tournament four years earlier, yet the way Venus described it, they seemed to have decided to enter largely to get match practise for the forthcoming Olympics in Rio.
“Well, we needed to play some matches before the Olympics,” said Venus, who suffered the only defeat either of them experienced in a combined 20 matches, to Angelique Kerber in the women’s singles semi-final.
“We haven't played in ages. So we started playing in Rome, played the French. If we get lucky, we'll get a chance to play in the summer before Rio.
“Hopefully this puts us in a good position, because more than anything we want to represent the U.S. the best we can. We don't want to come in rusty.”
That is how good they are, going into the draw unseeded because they have played so little doubles, yet brushing aside the challenges of women who specialise in this form of the sport.
In doing so they extended a record that they were apparently unaware of too, having won every previous Grand Slam doubles final they had contested together, 13 in all.
“I didn't know about that stat until yesterday, that we were 13-0,” Venus admitted immediately after Saturday’s final.
“It's not something you really think about. You just get to the final and try to win.”
It was a victory that completed a momentous day for her younger sister who had already achieved two individual landmarks in the women’s singles final by matching Steffi Graf’s hauls of 22 Grand Slam singles wins and seven Wimbledon singles titles.
That had been a high class match, but as well as Kerber played she was given no chance of repeating her success of earlier in the year when she beat Serena in the Australian Open final and was beaten in straight sets 7-5, 6-3.
After underlining her supremacy by being the only player on court in the doubles final not to have her service broken Serena explained that she had simply carried on where she had left off.
“I ride the high,” she said.
“I don't want to decompress too much, then go from being so high to being low, so I kind of take that and then go on from there to keep that energy going to the doubles.”
The bad news for all her would-be rivals is that having now dealt with the pressure that had clearly been telling on her as she sought to match Graf having reached 21 titles at Wimbledon last year only to suffer shock defeats at the ensuing US Open, as well as in this year’s Australian and French Open finals, a player who has sometimes seemed to struggle for motivation, now seems revitalised.
“It doesn't get boring,” she said.
“As long as I'm winning, it doesn't get boring. Even when I'm not winning, it doesn't, because it makes me want to work harder so I can come out and hold up titles.”
As to the mindset that has turned these siblings into such winners, big sister offered some insight.
“When you're out there, it's never good enough, it's never good enough,” Venus insisted, having also found her best singles form for years in reaching the semi-final of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since 2010.
“We both played a great match. We wanted to play better. Our opponents had a great tournament. They still wanted more.
“When you're an athlete, you're greedy. It's never enough.”
A collected 29 Grand Slam singles titles and 14 doubles titles, along with four Olympic gold medals apiece would seem more than enough for any one family.
However with Serena apparently in the mood to go after Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles and perhaps even chase down Martina Navratilova’s Wimbledon record of nine singles titles, it seems that they are exceedingly unlikely to stop at that.
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