Serena Williams is your 2015 Wimbledon champion after defeating Garbine Muguruza in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4. Williams and Muguruza combined for a solid matchup, though it didn't look that way early in the second set, when Williams looked to be taking one of her standard 6-1 victories. But Muguruza fought off multiple match points and broke Williams several times to make it interesting, though Williams still prevailed in the end.
Williams, 33, wins her 21st Grand Slam title and becomes the oldest female winner of a major in the Open Era. Muguruza was playing in her first Grand Slam final and smart money is on it not being her last. Still, Williams was the heavy favorite and she showed why on Saturday.
Williams has now won the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon in 2015. Only the U.S. Open remains. She's looking to become the first person to win a calendar Grand Slam since Steffi Graf in 1988, though she has just wrapped up her own "Serena Slam," which is winning four slams in a row, since she won the U.S. Open in 2014. Muguruza, the No. 20 seed coming into this match, should have increased expectations heading into the next Slam.
Things were interesting from the onset, with Williams serving to start the match and Muguruza fighting hard for an early break point. It went to deuce four times, with Muguruza returning well. A Williams return went long and Muguruza took an early 1-0 lead in the set. Williams got on the board on her next service game after Muguruza held her serve. Muguruza had her first scare of the match when Williams took things to deuce and threatened a break, but she ultimately held to take a 3-1 lead in the first.
Williams had an ever better break point attempt the next time around, with a double break point attempt, but Muguruza fought it off expertly to take a 4-2 lead in the set. At this point in the match, neither player was serving particularly well. Unfortunately for her, Muguruza couldn't sustain that and she gave Williams another double break point on her following serve, which Williams seized to get back on serve at 4-4.
The same thing happened the next time around, with Williams holding her serve and taking advantage of poor serving on Muguruza's part to take the opening set, 6-4.
In the second set, Muguruza started off by serving a bit better, holding her first serve without issue, while Williams also effectively held hers. Both players started serving better, but Williams turned things up. In the opening game of the match, Williams was sloppy with her serve, but there were multiple serves in the beginning of the second set that Muguruza never had a chance to return.
Williams broke Muguruza again on her following serve and held again to go up 4-1. It wasn't even a contest from that point on, with Williams breaking Muguruza without allowing her to even get a point in the next game, setting up a service game for the match. Muguruza showed some signs of life though, and broke Williams to make it 5-2. She then kept herself in it with her next service game. Miraculously, she kept herself in again by fighting off Williams' serve to get another break and get back on serve.
At that point, Williams was finally able to shut down the comeback, dominating Muguruza to score a break for the match win.
The men's final between top seed Novak Djokovic and No. 2 seed Roger Federer is set for Sunday.