“You’ve got unbelievable experience, up against youth – but potentially a star of the future.” So says Annabel Croft, Live @ Wimbledon analyst, on the context surrounding Saturday’s ladies' singles final between Serena Williams and Garbine Muguruza.
The two players could not be at more different stages of their careers. Serena, the game's dominant force, is the top seed and world No.1, gunning for her fourth straight major title and sixth Wimbledon crown. Muguruza, appearing in her first major final, is just 21 and seeded a lowly No.20. Until now, she had never gone further than a Grand Slam quarter-final. Sound familiar?
“You have to remember, all those years ago, when Serena played Maria Sharapova and Sharapova was just this 17-year-old," Croft recalls.
"Serena was expected to win that match, but it was Sharapova who came out and just shocked everybody. I’m really excited about it. I think it’s really fun to go into this final and not think it’s a foregone conclusion and that Serena Williams will win it. I think there’s a tiny bit of doubt.”
Let’s break down where the Wimbledon ladies’ singles final could be won and lost...
The Play
At first glance, Williams gets the best marks here. Grass is a surface that rewards all elements of her complete game – the awe-inspiring serve, booming ground strokes, impressive movement and first-strike approach.
Against Victoria Azarenka in the quarter-finals, Williams' serve approached the exosphere. She finished the match with 17 aces, including six in her final two service games. Dominant stuff. Against Sharapova in the semis, she closed out the match with three aces and an unreturnable serve.
“Serena’s serve, when you think of that one out wide – you saw it against Sharapova – it just takes off and it’s virtually untouchable,” Croft says.
“It’s whether Muguruza can pick it, and get it, and get it back with anything on it, and that is the biggest problem.”
Muguruza’s strength lies in her power off the ground. She used this to full effect in her 6-2, 6-2 destruction of Williams in the second round at Roland Garros last year, Williams’ heaviest professional loss at a Grand Slam tournament. Although that victory came on clay, Croft believes that her tactics can be equally effective on the grass of Centre Court.
"She stood up on the baseline and she took the ball very early. She was unbelievably aggressive off the return of serve and also on her own serve; she hit the spots and then she struck into the corners very well,” Croft says. “She played Serena at her own game, but executed it.”
The Mind
The response to that defeat by Muguruza is what sets Williams apart. Is there a player more motivated by setbacks than Serena? Sharapova has experienced first-hand Williams’ wrath following her Wimbledon victory of 2004: in 18 subsequent meetings, Williams has won 17.
Naturally, when Williams and Muguruza met at the Australian Open in January, Serena was the victor, albeit in three sets. “Serena does respond very well to defeats,” Croft observes. “She wants her revenge and she wants to put some young pretender in their place.”
Nobody appears tougher in the crucial third set of a Grand Slam match, either. Williams has been challenged several times this year by game opponents. Azarenka had her on the ropes at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon; so did Timea Bacsinszky in the French Open semis; Lucie Safarova led Serena 2-0 in the deciding set of the final in Paris but lost; Heather Watson came within two points of stunning Williams in the third round this fortnight.
Since losing to sister Venus in last year’s Montreal semi-finals, Serena is a sparkling 17-0 in three-set matches. Not that Muguruza is short on mental toughness. In the third round she beat the in-form Angelique Kerber and in the semi-finals staved off an impressive fightback from Agnieszka Radwanska, closing out the biggest match of her career with positive, aggressive play.
"She has amazing composure and she’s got such a lovely disposition on the court," says Croft. "She’s very controlled in her emotions; she takes her time in between points. She’s never someone who looks like she gets overly stressed out there. She just goes about her business, takes it in her stride.”
The Occasion
Would you believe that Williams and Muguruza have only met on the Grand Slam stage? Apart from their meetings in Paris and Melbourne, they faced off at the Australian Open in 2013, a match Williams won 6-2, 6-0.
Yet this Wimbledon final has much more riding on it. Not only is it a coveted Grand Slam decider but a win would keep alive Williams' bid for an immortalising calendar Grand Slam, and would put her even closer to Steffi Graf’s professional-era record of 22 majors. Just a little bit of pressure, then.
At the same time, Muguruza is appearing in her first Grand Slam final. Such an occasion can be overwhelming for a player, as Sabine Lisicki discovered in a tearful 2013 decider. “There’s no way that she’s not going to be nervous, but something tells me that she’ll be able to handle those nerves,” Croft says of the Spaniard.
“It’s almost as if she’s been groomed for this moment, and she is really excited about it. I thought it was a really mature comment when she said ‘I want to face Serena in a Grand Slam final’. I thought, wow, that says a lot about her inner belief. She’s clearly not frightened or intimidated by taking on Serena.”
Ultimately, however, all eyes will be on Williams as she continues her charge towards tennis history. She is never likely to have a better chance to complete the calendar Slam, and given she is soon to turn 34, time is surely running out to catch Graf, let alone Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 majors. The time is now.
“I think she will feel a lot of pressure,” Croft says. “She doesn’t want to talk about the Grand Slam. She’s very anguished when you watch her on the court. The other day, when she played Heather, I was very close to the court and she almost looked like she was hyperventilating, so she does get more stressed than you realise.
“The pressure is all on her – not just for the match and the title, but for everything else that’s she’s trying to achieve. It’s just monumental. Yet she has actually coped with it unbelievably well.”