WIMBLEDON, England — On the first point of the women’s final at Wimbledon on Saturday, Angelique Kerber ended a rally with a forehand winner down the line.
On the next, Serena Williams sent a backhand crosscourt winner that scorched the baseline.
Yes, it was going to be one of those matches. But unlike the outcome of their duel in the Australian Open final in January, Williams came out the winner.
Williams tied Steffi Graf’s Open-era record for Grand Slam singles titles, gaining her 22nd with a 7-5, 6-3 victory. The win left her two short of Margaret Court’s overall record of 24 Grand Slam titles from 1960 to 1973.
Williams, 34, had insisted that “22 has never been my goal.” She had not won a major championship since last year’s Wimbledon, losing in the semifinals at the 2015 United States Open and in the finals at the Australian and French Opens this year.
In her remarks on the court after Saturday’s match, with that 22nd major title finally hers, Williams said it had been “incredibly difficult” not to think about Graf’s record.
“It makes the victory even sweeter to know how hard I worked for it,” she said.
Kerber, the No. 4 seed who will ascend to No. 2 in the world rankings on Monday, entered the final having not lost a set at Wimbledon.
Williams also had been rolling through the draw since losing the first set of her second-round match against Christina McHale.
Chris Evert, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion and now an analyst for ESPN, said earlier in the week that Williams was playing “as good as I’ve seen her play in the last year.”
The same could be said of Williams’s performance on Saturday. As usual, it was her serve that gave her the title. With windy conditions on Centre Court, Williams said, “it would be better if I served great.”
“Great” may not be a strong enough term: Williams hit 13 aces, lost only five points on her first serve, and faced just one break point. Forty-three percent of her serves went unreturned.
“Serena was serving unbelievable today,” Kerber said. “At the end I was trying everything, but she deserved it today.”
Though she was frustrated during Williams’s service games, Kerber stayed in the match, playing sound defense and using the same aggressive, fearless shot-making that won her the title in Australia.
Kerber survived a nervous first service game, saving three break points, but she could not gain any traction on Williams’s serve until 3-3 in the first set.
After Williams won a 21-shot rally to go up, 40-15, Kerber won the next point on a forehand winner and forced an error by Williams to get to deuce. But she would get no closer to breaking Williams’s serve in the set.
With Williams serving at 5-5, the set turned. Williams, down by 15-30, unleashed three unreturnable serves to win the game.
She quickly got two break points in the next game, taking the game and the set on the second.
“She was just going for it,” Kerber said. “I played two points a little bit too short, and she was there, and she goes for it. So, yeah, I mean, she did everything right.”
Kerber did not back down, however. She hit a backhand winner to end a 15-shot rally early in the second set, causing Williams to applaud.
“I love playing her,” Williams said. “She’s such a great opponent. She brings out great tennis in me.”
Kerber finally got her first break point of the match at 3-3. Williams hit a 117-mile-per-hour ace and then a 124 m.p.h. ace to get out of trouble.
“It was her first break point, and I wasn’t going to let it go on the very first one, at least,” Williams said. “I wanted to hit an ace.”
In the next game, both players earned an ovation for an acrobatic rally at the net. Kerber was up, 40-15, but was forced into three straight errors, which gave Williams her first and only break point of the second set.
Kerber shanked a backhand off Williams’s return, giving Williams a chance to serve for the match.
Kerber could not get the ball in play on the first three serves, and Williams closed out her seventh Wimbledon championship with a forehand winner at the net, then fell to the grass, lying on her back to take in the long-awaited moment.
After it was over, Williams was willing to admit that she cared about 22, and that it was a “relief” to finally get it. She said there had been “some sleepless nights” after her Grand Slam failures, including the stunning upset to Roberta Vinci in the United States Open, when Williams was two wins away from completing a calendar-year Grand Slam.
During the whole Wimbledon fortnight, Williams has talked about having a different mind-set, about being calmer. From her losses at the Australian and French Opens, she said that she had “learned that you can’t win everything, even though I try really hard.”
“I do the best that I can,” she said. “I still am not going to be perfect.”
The last time she went a year without a Grand Slam title was in 2014, when she was pursuing her 18th. Then she was not falling short in finals: She was failing to get out of the fourth round. She has now reached the final in seven of the last eight majors.
“I had to start looking at positives, not focusing on that one loss per tournament which really isn’t bad, and for anyone else on this tour would be completely happy about it,” Williams said.
“Once I started focusing more on the positives, I realized that I’m pretty good. Then I started playing a little better.”
Asked about what her next goal will be, whether it be an eighth Wimbledon title or reaching Court’s 24, Williams was not interested in talking about numbers.
“I’ve learned a lot about 22,” she said. “I learned not to get involved in those debates and conversations.”
About five hours later, Williams added to her Grand Slam collection, joining her sister Venus to defeat Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova, 6-3, 6-4, for the women’s doubles championship. The victory gave the Williamses 14 Grand Slam doubles championships, tying Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva for second in the Open era.
It was their first major doubles title in four years. They had not played doubles together in nearly two years before resuming this spring to prepare for the Rio Olympics.
