Serena serenades her Sixth Australian Open title

The American produced a gutsy display to defeat the Russian roulette, Maria Sharapova, in straight sets 6-2 7-6(5). 

IN just 111 MINUTES.

It had the trappings of an epic final; massive crowd, strategic game plans, the downpour, fist pumps, the savage cries of 'come on!', the Sharapova-esque shrieks, a deciding tie breaker and of course, the WINNER.

And it was....... SERENA WILLIAMS!

The meeting between these two was never anything friendly to go by as Serena had edged Sharapova a disastrous and cringe-worthy 15-0 in a row for the last 10 years dating back to the Australian open in 2005. But the Russian beauty, from the word go, was set to break the hoodoo. After the seemingly cold pre match pleasantries, the set began with an unsettled and anxious Sharapova making some unforced errors to gift Serena a mini break. Serena aced her way through her serves giving Sharapova little or no room to settle into the tie. 

Midway through the first set on Sharapova’s serve, the umpire signaled a pause in play due to some downpour and it took 12 minutes for the game to restart as the roof of the Rod Laver arena had to be closed. Serena, who had been plagued by a cold for the most part of the tournament, had to go back to the dressing room to avoid the cold. She came out a few minutes later coughing repeatedly. Within that timeframe, she undertook a medical time out to treat her recurring cough. Nonetheless, Serena was again in cruise control until the eighth game where Sharapova reversed Serena’s serving for the set to a break on serve for 5-3. That little glimmer of a resurgence died in the next couple of minutes as Serena broke back on Sharapova’s serve to a love game taking the first set, 6-4.

The second set started off in similar fashion to the first as Sharapova struggled to hold serve. Her resilience paid off with beautiful forehand winners for a crucial hold. Serena moved within minutes of  breaking Sharapova further with a couple of quick points, rallies and aces but that galvanized Sharapova to defend even deeper and ignite that mental strength she’s been known lately to possess. 

The set wore on as the ladies groaned, grunted, psyched and served their way to a tie breaker where Serena raced to a 4-1 lead. A late comeback by Maria proved to be too little too late as Serena closed the match to win the championship 7-5 on tie breaker and 7-6 in the set

With six Australian open titles in her kitty, her last coming in 2010,  the world number one surpassed the exclusive 18 titles club of fellow American Compatriots, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova and is now 3 grand slam titles away from equaling Steffi Graf’s 22 titles which is still 2 shy of the record holder, Margaret Courts’ 24 Grand Slam titles. 

In her many glorifying stats, Serena is now the oldest player to win an Australian Open title in the open era following her 2014 US Open domination.  Her Russian opponent and world number two – who is now a three time Australian open runner up out of four finals dating from 2007 – had a lot of praises for Serena amidst a concealed disappointment.

“First of all I’ve got to congratulate Serena for creating history. It’s really an honor playing against her. I haven’t beaten her in a really long time, but I really love playing against her as she is the best and you want to play against the best. So congratulations on an incredible achievement.”

With the winner taking home a whopping $3.1 million, Serena ultimately had her team to thank.

“I can’t leave without thanking my friends and my family and my coach Patrick for getting me through this. You (Patrick) really believed in me. There were moments when I didn’t believe in me and you did.”

“Everyone else in the box, I just really thank you for these two weeks.”  

Recent performances at grand slam tournaments have seen Serena stutter at the beginning but with a win to start the season and at 33 years of age, she is virtually unstoppable. And Irreplaceable.