Five-star Serena Williams powers to victory

Serena Williams grew up with designs upon everything that her beloved sister Venus had and yesterday (Saturday), as she clutched the Rosewater Dish for a fifth time, her wish was granted. With a compelling three-set triumph over Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, in a ladies' final that proved far more competitive than anybody had dared hope, Williams savoured her 14th grand slam title, aged 30, and assured herself finally, indisputably, of her place in the pantheon of women's tennis.

No less august an authority than John McEnroe went further, claiming: "I believe that you are watching the greatest women's player that has ever played this game." Martina Navratilova, with nine Wimbledon titles, or Steffi Graf, as a 22-time slam champion, might legitimately have contested that verdict. But after the Californian's 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 win in a shade over two hours, we could be certain that nobody had ever struck a tennis ball with the sheer ferocity and spirit of the irrepressible Serena.

Radwanska could be intensely proud of her role in the drama, having forced Williams to strain every sinew en route to this glory, but the stage belonged to the all-conquering American. Since she first launched her musclebound frame upon a Centre Court final a decade ago, no single moment on this stage had ever felt more satisfying. In two traumatic years she had sliced her foot open on a broken bottle in Munich and received treatment for a life-threatening pulmonary embolism, but here in immaculate Wimbledon white she was a champion once more.

Whether it is the bouquets or the trappings of grandeur, the silverware or the presence of minor royalty, there is a sense of ceremony about ladies' final day here that seems to reduce Williams to girly, coquettish giggles.

"Oh my God, I can't describe it," she gushed, as she struggled to articulate her achievement. "I almost didn't make it, with that time in hospital. But now I'm here again." She embraced what has become a champion's tradition in tottering up to the players' box, falling into the arms of mother Oracene, father Richard, and of course Venus, whose five Wimbledon wins she matched.

Clearly emotional at the trophy presentation, she called across in tears to her sisters to thank them for their support throughout her recent medical difficulties.

As she cast her mind back to the embolism, the pain of her ordeal was evident. Williams, a devout Jehovah's Witness, recalled: "I had been on the couch for two days and I was praying, saying, 'I can't take any more. I've endured enough. Let me get through this'.

"I had a tube in my stomach and it was draining constantly. I had a blood clot, lung problems, and I couldn't do anything. I felt at the lowest of lows."

There has rarely been a more imposing player than the younger Williams on grass, but the suddenness of her return here was astonishing. Only last month she had suffered an embarrassing first-round exit at the French Open, but at the All England Club she reclaimed her crown with the remorselessness of old. For the first set yesterday she was as irresistible as Radwanska was tentative, lashing her groundstrokes with prodigious force and complementing her lethal serve with unexpected, delicate drop shots.

Radwanska was a rabbit in headlights, wondering at 5-0 down whether she would suffer the same fate as Natasha Zverera, who played a first slam final at Roland Garros in 1988 and did not win a single game. The Pole was the first player from her country to grace a major championship final since Jadwiga Jedrzejowska in 1939 and the occasion clearly unsettled her, as she miscued on forehands she would normally have put away.

It did not help that Radwanska was still carrying the ill-effects of a cold she had contracted due to Britain's sorry excuse for a summer. Coughing and sniffling at changeovers, she toiled through the first half-hour, giving the impression that she did not for a second expect to win.

Williams only served three aces in the opening set, a paltry total for her, but her 23-year-old opponent could summon up no response, allowing sixth seed Williams to counter-attack second serves that came over the net like sitting ducks.

She wore a resigned look and yet, against overwhelming odds, she reversed the momentum. Erasing an early Williams break to love, she found a series of watertight service games and, cheered on by a boisterous Centre Court crowd, scurried and scampered to scramble Williams' thoughts and take the second 7-5.

But there was a reason why the American had lost just one of 194 matches after she had taken the first set. She re-established her authority with a remarkable game of four aces to move 3-1 clear in the third, eventually sealing it 6-2 before dropping to the ground in delight.