Magnificent Simona wins Wimbledon while leaving Serena searching

WIMBLEDON — The chair umpire called time to begin the match and Simona Halep was ready. The Romanian went racing over to get in position to return Serena Williams’ serve, while the 23-time Grand Slam champion still took her time in her chair.

It was a sign of things to come, as Halep zipped all over the court with a fantastic combination of deft slices that kept her in points when she needed it, and precise winners that seemed to find the lines every time. It was a perfect performance to win her maiden Wimbledon trophy 6-2, 6-2 against the greatest of all time, who simply had no answer.

“She literally played out of her mind,” Williams said at the trophy presentation.

“Never,” Halep said when asked whether she’s ever played better. “That was the best match [I’ve played], and Serena always inspires us.”

Wimbledon has never been a place for resumés to take precedent. It was here that a 19-year-old Roger Federer announced himself with a shock win over then grandmaster Pete Sampras. It was here where Boris Becker won it all at just 17 years old. Steffi Graf showed no sign of intimidation at 19 when she defeated the one and only Martina Navratilova. Even Serena showed no regard for sister Venus when she defeated the two-time defending champion in straight sets for her first Wimbledon title in 2002.

While Halep’s record of achievements is impressive, having won the French Open last year and finishing the last two years as the world’s top ranked player, it dwarfs in comparison to Serena’s crowded trophy cabinet. Much of the narrative entering the match highlighted that this would be Halep’s first Wimbledon final, compared to Williams’ 11th.

Furthermore, Halep has had to work her way towards being effective on grass, where her sliding, running game has struggled to translate. She’s been knocked out before the second week on five occasions and has even been on record saying that she doesn’t like the grass of Wimbledon. Her mother once told her that if she was going to do something special in tennis, it would be playing a final in Wimbledon, and now she went one better.

“Thinking that it is a possibility to win on grass, it was tough to believe because we don’t even have a court — a grass court — in Romania,” Halep said after the match. “But I knew if we be patient and if we work hard, we get the feeling of the grass court, so I did this year.”

She admitted to feeling nervous before the match, and that it even caused “problems” for her stomach, but that the nerves were positive rather than negative. Instead, she focussed on her game plan and what she needed to do to be successful, a plan she devised the morning of.

“I knew that I have to be aggressive, being 100 percent for every ball, that I don’t have to let her come back to the match because she’s so powerful and so strong,” Halep said. “She knows how to manage every moment so I knew that I have to stay there, which I did pretty well today.”

After breaking through with her first Grand Slam title at the 2018 French Open after seven full years on tour, Halep is showing that she has a feel for getting over the final hurdle on the biggest stage. Serena, on the other hand, is the one who is struggling to muster the magic that made her the game’s most dominant player of the Open Era.

Since becoming a mother, she has remarkably reached three Grand Slam finals in six tries, but has fallen short of tying Margaret Court’s record 24 singles titles in each of them. Before 2016, she was 21-4 in Grand Slam Finals, but is now 2-5 since, having lost the last six sets and won just 18 games in the last three finals. After her semifinal win, she said that she was more contemplative than she’s ever been, even trying to channel ‘Young Serena.’ Now, the search continues.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Williams said when asked about being unable to close out these opportunities. “I just have to figure out a way to win a final. Maybe it is playing other finals outside of Grand Slams, would be really helpful just to kind of get in the groove so by the time I get to Grand Slam final I’m kind of used to what to do and how to play.”

Williams confirmed that she has entered her name for the Rogers Cup in Toronto as well as the Cincinnati Masters, but that will be all the prep work she needs prior to the U.S. Open. Winning one of those events would certainly go a long way towards building that confidence at the final hurdle back up. More than anything, it may be more important than ever for her to go up against the top players on the WTA circuit more often to figure out better answers.

Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have all chimed in at different times about being grateful for having one another to raise their levels, and this is arguably the most that Serena has been challenged to find yet another gear.

If Angelique Kerber was the master tactician to defeat her at Wimbledon a year ago and Naomi Osaka outhit her at Flushing Meadows, this was an exhibition on all fronts from Halep. She made just three(!) unforced errors all match to Williams’ 26, won nearly half the return points she faced, and allowed just a single break point opportunity, which she saved.

“I don’t know if there’s anything I could have done differently, I think I gave a great effort for this fortnight,” Williams said. “Again, I think Simona just played her heart out. If anything, I could just learn to be like that.”

Be like Simona. With a performance like that, everyone including the great Serena is left hoping.