Serena Williams reaches 10th Wimbledon final with straight sets win

It's almost as if Serena Williams never left.

Even after more than a year away from the tour, even after a health scare while having a baby a little more than 10 months ago, Williams is still capable of dominance. Especially at Wimbledon, where she's one victory from an eighth championship.

A relatively routine 6-2, 6-4 semifinal victory over 13th-seeded Julia Goerges of Germany on Thursday put Williams into her 10th final at the All England Club and moved her closer to a 24th Grand Slam title, which would equal Margaret Court's record.

Wimbledon Wrap: Angelique Kerber and Serena Williams to meet in final

6 years ago

Duration 2:12

Angelique Kerber and Serena Williams will play a rematch of the 2016 Wimbledon women's final, which was won by Williams.

"It's crazy. I don't even know how to feel, you know, because literally, I didn't expect to do this well in my fourth tournament back," Williams said. "I just feel like when I don't have anything to lose, I just can play so free, and that's kind of what I'm doing."

After hitting five aces with a serve that reached 119 mph, delivering 16 winners to only seven unforced errors, and covering the court so well with speed and effort against Goerges, Williams will face another German, 11th-seeded Angelique Kerber, on Saturday.

"Whatever happens, honestly it's an incredible effort from me," the 36-year-old Williams said, "and good motivation to keep going for the rest of my career."

After giving birth to daughter Olympia last September, Williams dealt with issues including blood clots, and she's been wearing compression leggings this fortnight as a precaution. Her first Grand Slam tournament back was the French Open, where she won three matches before withdrawing last month because of an injured chest muscle.

All of the time away pushed someone who's spent more than 300 weeks ranked No. 1 down the rankings — she began Wimbledon at 181st, but was seeded 25th on account of her past success — and no one could quite be sure how the American would fare over these two weeks.

Not even Williams knew

"This is not inevitable for me. I had a really tough delivery, and I had to have multiple surgeries and almost didn't make it, to be honest," Williams said. "I remember I couldn't even walk to my mail box, so it's definitely not normal for me to be in a Wimbledon final. So I'm taking everything as it is and just enjoying every moment."

The victory over Goerges extended Williams' winning streak at Wimbledon to 20 matches, dating to the start of the 2015 edition. She's also won her past 15 Grand Slam matches, going to the start of the 2017 Australian Open, which she won while pregnant.

That title pushed her past Steffi Graf's record of 22 majors in the half-century professional era; Court won some of her Slams during the amateur era.

Williams' match against Goerges featured two of the best servers around, and began quite evenly, until 2-all, 30-all. Goerges, the first seeded player Williams faced these two weeks, showed she was capable of trading power from the baseline with Williams.

There were moments when watching Goerges made it easy to wonder how it could be possible she never had been past a major's fourth round until now. Or, more to the point on this afternoon, how such a stinging serve and big groundstrokes didn't help her avoid first-round exits each of the past five years at Wimbledon.

But she couldn't keep up with Williams, who grabbed 18 of 22 points and five consecutive games to close the first set and begin the next. Williams broke for a 4-2 lead in the second when Goerges tried a rare drop shot that caught the top of the net tape and fell on her side. There was one brief blip to come: Williams got broken for the only time while serving for the match at 5-3.

Immediately, though, Williams broke back at love to end it, smiling widely and placing her left fist on her chest when Goerges' last shot landed long.

2016 rematch

It was clear right from the opening game of Kerber's semifinal how things were going to go. She was not going to dictate or control much.

She was, instead, going to employ spectacular defence and solid, steady play, while letting her opponent, Jelena Ostapenko, be the one to determine the outcomes of nearly every point.

It worked. The 11th-seeded Kerber reached her second final at the All England Club by avoiding too many mistakes and using a seven-game run to seize control for a 6-3, 6-3 victory over the 12th-seeded Ostapenko on Thursday.

"These are the matches I was working for as a young kid," Kerber said, "and to stand here again in the final at Wimbledon is great."

Kerber is a former No. 1 and a two-time major champion, both coming in 2016 at the Australian Open and U.S. Open. That was also the year the German was the runner-up at Wimbledon, losing to Serena Williams in the title match.

The left-handed Kerber was mainly a passive participant in the early going against Ostapenko. That first game consisted of eight points: Three were unforced errors by Ostapenko, including a double-fault to begin the proceedings; the other five were winners by her, including a 100 mph ace to close the hold.

Five games in, Ostapenko led 3-2, and the numbers were still tilted toward her. She had 14 winners and 10 unforced errors, while Kerber had three winners and — this was key — zero unforced errors.

There were no drawn-out points in the early going, no lengthy baseline exchanges, essentially because Ostapenko wouldn't allow it. The Latvian plays an aggressive brand of first-strike tennis that carried her to the 2017 French Open title as an unseeded 20-year-old.

Kerber, in contrast, bides her time, working the back of the court to get everything back over the net, often kneeling to get low enough to reach shots.

Eventually, Kerber's style ruled the day. She went on a half-hour run in which she took the last four games of the first set and took a 3-0 lead in the second. Ostapenko's strokes were missing and she grew increasingly frustrated, slapping a thigh after a miss or leaning forward and putting her hands on her knees after others. By the time she flubbed a backhand while falling behind 5-1 in the second, she dropped her racket and screamed.

It took Kerber two tries to serve out the victory, getting broken to 5-2. But unlike in the quarterfinals, when she needed seven match points to win, this time it required only two, with the match ending — fittingly enough — on a forehand by Ostapenko that sailed wide.

The final tally told the story: Ostapenko had far more winners, 30-10, but also far more unforced errors, 36-7.