Williams has Graf’s records in her sights

LONDON — Serena Williams sent a Twitter message on Saturday night to her old friend and training partner Andy Roddick: “I hear you said I’m already thinking about the US Open five minutes ago? Ummm Andy, you are 20 minutes late.”

From a woman who has now won four consecutive majors, this was an ominous message to the rest of the tour. Williams is so far clear of the field that she has lost only one match this season: To Petra Kvitova in the Madrid semi-final. Now, she has extra motivation to close out the holy grail of tennis — the calendar Grand Slam — at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she has remained unbeaten since the 2011 final against Sam Stosur.

“I guess there is a difference,” Williams said on Sunday, when asked if it was a bigger deal to do the calendar slam than the so-called Serena Slam, which she completed for the second time in her career on Saturday, via her 6-4, 6-4 victory against Spaniard Garbine Muguruza at Wimbledon.

“Like, you can’t be disappointed with winning all four in a row — all four trophies are at my house right now, so that’s kind of cool.

“But (as for the calendar slam) because of what everyone says and writes and seeing it as the ultimate, so obviously you can’t help but see it that way too. There’s a reason it’s been 27 years since it’s been done. I mean, it’s not the easiest thing to do.”

Williams’ whole approach to interviews this summer was to shut down any discussion of these themes. When a BBC interviewer brought up the forbidden subject after the straight-sets semi-final win over Maria Sharapova, she grinned and mimed the universal throat-cutting gesture that means “end of conversation”. Yet her mood was so buoyant in the wake of her trophy-clinching performance on Saturday that she declared a brief amnesty.

“You better ask all your questions about the Grand Slam because it will be banned soon,” she told a group of reporters. “I’m really nice right now but sooner or later it’s going on a ban because I can’t think about that. I have to go into New York thinking, ‘Listen, I want to win the US Open, I want to defend my title’. And that’s the only reason I want to be there.

“I want to go in that locker room and take my famous picture on my knees and hold up that No 4 (her fourth successive US Open title). That’s what I want to do. And that’s how I got through this. It wasn’t about winning the Serena Slam, it was about winning Wimbledon. I hadn’t won here in a while, I really wanted to win this title and that’s the same mind frame I want to go into the next Grand Slam.”

Steffi Graf is sure to be watching closely as the US Open unfolds. She was the last woman to complete the calendar Grand Slam, in 1988, when she also won the Olympic singles title to complete the only “Golden Slam” in tennis history. Two other Graf records will be under threat as well.

A Williams win would carry her to 22 career titles, equalling Graf. It would also make Williams the first woman to win five of these events on the bounce since Graf did it with the 1989 Australian Open.

“I just went in there (last year’s US Open) having a low goal, quarter-finals, and then built on that goal match by match, and that’s literally how I took it,” said Williams. “So, this year, I just have to take it one match at a time.” THE DAILY TELEGRAPH