Serena and Kerber to vie for Wimbledon title
Thursday, July 12, 2018
German Angelique Kerber edged Latvian Jelena Ostapenko on Thursday to set date with Serena Williams in Wimbledon final. Net photo.

Seven-time champion Serena Williams reached the Wimbledon final for the 10th time on Thursday and will face Germany’s Angelique Kerber for the title.

The 25th seeded American downed German 13th seed Julia Goerges 6-2, 6-4 to book her place in her 30th Grand Slam final.

The 36-year-old, who will be in her first final at the majors since giving birth to daughter Olympia last year, can equal Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Slam titles if she beats Kerber in what will be a repeat of the 2016 final at the All England Club.

Germany’s Angelique Kerber proved too steady for error-strewn Latvian Jelena Ostapenko as she reached her second Wimbledon final with a comfortable 6-3 6-3 victory.

A first-ever duel between the two Grand Slam champions with diametrically opposed playing styles ultimately boiled down to a simple mathematical formula.

Young firebrand Ostapenko’s 30 winners far outweighed the 10 struck by the wily Kerber but the 36 unforced errors she committed made for an ugly balance sheet.

The 30-year-old Kerber, who offered up only a miserly seven free points, really just had to stay calm and wait for her opponent to self-destruct and Ostapenko fell into the trap.

Former world No 1 Kerber needed only 68 minutes to reach her fourth Grand Slam final in which she will face either seven-time champion Serena Williams, who beat her in the 2016 final here, or fellow German Julia Georges.

Kerber is now back in a Grand Slam title match for the first time since beating Karolina Pliskova in the 2016 US Open final -- having begun that year by stunning Serena Williams in the final of the Australian Open.

After suffering a drastic slump in 2017, ending the year ranked outside the top 20, Kerber is back where she feels she clearly belongs.

Agencies