Angelique Kerber, stunned Serena Williams to win the Australian Open on Saturday. By doing so, she destroyed the American world number one’s bid to equal Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22 Grand Slam titles.
The seventh seed, Kerber, beat Williams 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to win her first ever major title, thus becoming the first German Grand Slam champion since Graf at the 1999 French Open.
Williams, the world number one, had won all six previous Melbourne Park finals she had played and had also triumphed in her last eight Grand Slam finals.
But Kerber, inspired by a message from Graf, made clear before the match that all the pressure was on her opponent and she mercilessly exploited her weaknesses in a nail biting match at the Rod Laver Arena.
“My whole life I was working really hard and now I’m here and I can say I’m a Grand Slam champion, so it sounds really crazy,” she said, swallowing her tears.
“The best two weeks of my life and career. I had goose bumps here on the centre court when I was playing.” Williams was made to make many mistakes, while Kerber held serve comfortably to apply more pressure.
But the errors kept coming from Williams, who swiped a wild backhand and then missed an easy volley to hand Kerber another break as the German dictated the baseline points.
It went with serve until the fourth game when Kerber dug herself a hole with two double faults that helped Williams to a 3-1 lead.
The world number one fired her first ace of the match in going 4-1 in front and, more controlled, began shooting down some damaging groundstrokes.
Williams took the match into a deciding third set having made only five unforced errors, in stark contrast to her wayward first set.
