Serena hoists Wimbledon trophy for her 6th title

Serena Williams holds the women’s singles trophy Saturday after beating Garbine Muguruza at the 2015 Wimbledon Championship. [AP/NEWIS]

LONDON - Game. Set. Serena Slam.

Serena Williams overcame a slow start, eight double faults and a nervour finish to beat Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday for her sixth Wimbledon title, fourth Grand Slam championship in a row and 21st major overall.

The win means Williams holds all four Grand Slam titles at once ? completing the second ``Serena Slam’’ of her career. What’s more, she secured the third leg of a calendar-year Grand Slam and, if she wins the U.S. Open, will become the first player to sweep all four majors in the same season since Steffi Graf did it in 1988.

Williams, winning her 28th straight Grand Slam match, is now just one major title behind Graf on the Open era list and two behind the all-time leader, Margaret Court.

At 33, Williams is also the oldest woman to win a Grand Slam title in the Open era. She has now won eight major championships while in her 30s.

Williams’ service was broken in the opening game by the 21-year-old Spaniard, who was playing in her first Grand Slam final, and she fell behind 4-2. She began playing more aggressively and ran off five straight games to take the set and go up 1-0 in the second.

Williams pulled out to a 5-1 lead and looked ready to finish Muguruza off quickly. But she seemed to get tight, and was broken twice while serving for the match.

Muguruza saved a match point and converted on her fifth break point to draw within 5-4. But Williams then broke her at love in the next game and closed out the match in anticlimactic fashion when Muguruza hit a forehand wide.

Neither player seemed to realize immediately that the match was over, and there was an awkward delay before Williams covered her face with both hands, then smiled and raised her arms in the air. After the two players hugged at the net, Williams hopped up and down on the side of the court with her arms above her head.

She later accepted the winner’s trophy - the Venus Rosewater Dish - from the Duke of Kent. Williams hasn’t lost in a Grand Slam since falling in the third round to Alize Cornet at Wimbledon last year.

AP