After Steffi Graf, Angelique Kerber is the most successful German tennis player of all time. The biggest coup of her career came on July 14, 2018, when she defeated the 23-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams in an impressive manner in the Wimbledon final.
In the summer of 2018, Angelique Kerber was already a star on the tennis stage. For years she had been the German number one in the WTA circus, had already won the biggest hard court tournaments of the year in Melbourne and New York and led the world rankings for several months.
And yet: your biggest dream of the Wimbledon title remained unfulfilled in your eleven previous tournament participations. In 2016, in the best season of her career to date, she had already been in the final on the Sacred Lawn of Center Court, but at that time she was still 5: 7 and 3: 6 behind the then number one in the world Serena Williams.
It finally worked out in July 2018: in the previous rounds, the native of Bremen underlined her outstanding form, not letting the seeded players Naomi Osaka (18), Darya Kasatkina (14) and Jelena Ostapenko (12) lose a single set.
On Saturday afternoon of the second week of the tournament, it was time for the big revenge in a Wimbledon final against Serena Williams. The almost overwhelming American, who had previously triumphed seven times in her unique career on Church Road. The then 36-year-old, who two days earlier had given the German surprise semi-finalist Julia Görges no chance at 6: 2 and 6: 2.
Kerber benefits from Williams’ mistakes
22 years after Steffi Graf’s last victory at the most renowned tennis tournament in the world, Angelique Kerber was there immediately. After just a few minutes, she turned her first breakball into a 1-0 lead and easily brought her own service to 2-0.
In a turbulent first set, in which Serena Williams made a whopping 14 unforced errors, Kerber converted her first set ball to 6: 3 after almost half an hour, which 15,000 spectators cheered on Center Court.
The American, who was back in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since her 13-month baby break, wanted to do it again in the second round. Williams maintained their risky game, but continued to miss too many balls and thus repeatedly gave up easy points to the German.
Kerber was fully focused and took the opportunity that presented itself: At 3: 2 for the left-hander, she used another break ball to make it 4: 2 and then brought the match home with great sovereignty.
After just 65 minutes, Kerber used her first championship ball and sank onto the London green, overwhelmed by all the emotions.
At the moment of her greatest triumph, Angelique Kerber fell to the ground, overwhelmed
The German number one had finally become the world star of tennis and made no secret of her great emotions at the subsequent victory ceremony: “That’s the dream of my dreams. Even as a child I wanted to win Wimbledon. That’s the icing on the cake. Missing there me the words. If I get the bowl, I won’t give it back.”
Meanwhile, Williams showed herself to be a fair loser and congratulated her good friend on the greatest triumph of her career: “She deserves it. She’s an incredible person.”
Before that, the two had already hugged for seconds in front of the absolute A-celebrities such as Duchess Kate or Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton. A great day of tennis, not only from a German point of view.
Mats Yannick Roth