Serena Williams is looking to forge her place in tennis history after winning her 11th grand slam title at Wimbedon on Saturday.
The 27-year-old American told CNN that she had set “new goals” after beating sister Venus 7-6 6-2 to win the title on the grass of the All-England club for the third time. It left her one behind fellow American and childhood idol Billiie Jean King on the grand slam all-time list and Williams admitted she had re-evaluated how many she could now win. “I have totally different goals about how many I want to reach and I now know exactly which number I want to go to,” she said. “Then hopefully when I get there, I have another number.” Williams can match King by winning the the U.S Open in August and she said that she was already “focused” on the next grand slam at Flushing Meadows in New York. Australia’s Margaret Court holds the all-time women’s record for grand slam titles with 24, while Germany’s Steffi Graf won 22.
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Despite winning three of the past four grand slams, Williams remains at world number two in the WTA rankings behind Dinara Safina, but she brushed off the controversy. “Everybody thinks that I am number one, so that’s fine with me,” she said. Despite being the higher seeded player, Serena went into the final as the underdog after her sister’s demolition of Safina in the semifinals. By contrast, the eventual champion survived a match point before beating Elena Dementieva in her last four clash and felt she had nothing to lose against her sibling who was chasing a sixth Wimbledon title. “In the semis I didn’t play play my best tennis and I know going into the finals I could play that way.
“I didn’t want to lose in 10 minutes so Venus forced me to play better.” The sisters also paired up to win a fourth Wimbledon women’s doubles title as they beat Australia’s Samantha Stosur and Rennae Stubbs, 7-6 6-4.
