Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber are set to meet in the 2018 Wimbledon Ladies Final after they defeated Julia Goerges and Jelena Ostapenko respectively.
The 25th seeded Williams defeated Goerges in straight sets (6-2, 6-4), while the 11th seeded Kerber also won in straight sets as she defeated Ostapenko (6-3, 6-3).
With the victory Williams has reached her 10th Wimbledon final, having won seven, including a victory over Kerber in 2016. The German and the American, however, are even in Grand Slam finals as Kerber defeated Williams in 2016 to win the Australian Open.
This is the 12th year in a row that the youngest Williams reaches a Grand Slam final as she last year won the Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant before taking the rest of the year off to give birth to her daughter. Williams thus ties Chris Evert’s record in the Open Era.
This is the ninth career meeting between the two. Kerber, ranked 10th in the world, doesn’t have a good head-to-head record against Serena as she has faced her eight times and has lost six of those matches.
Interestingly, the last three times these players faced each other did so in tournament finals with Williams winning two of those.
Despite their fierce rivalry, matches between these two players usually are victories in straight sets. In fact, only once has a match between these two needed a third set (Kerber’s 2016 Australian Open win).
Both players have only lost one set on their way to this final. Williams needed three sets to defeat Camila Giorgi in the quarterfinals (3-6, 6-3, 6-4), while Kerber has not needed three sets to defeat anyone since beating American Claire Liu (3-6, 6-2, 6-4) in the round of 64.
After taking last year off due to her maternity leave Williams is now ranked 181st in the world, thus she’s become the lowest-ranked player ever to reach a Wimbledon final. Thus, if she wins she’ll become the lowest-ranked player ever to win the tournament.
If Williams gets her eighth Wimbledon trophy on Saturday, she will tie Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slam Wins. She already holds the Open Era record after breaking Steffi Graf’s record (22 wins) last year when she won the Australian Open.
Williams is the favorite for the oddsmakers as her line is at -215, while the return on Kerber is at +165.
