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The focus has understandably been on Serena Williams’s comeback this season.

She was the tennis superstar returning from childbirth with Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles in her sights.

She was the one showing the way, at the age of 36, for working mothers and older athletes to keep striving for more.

But Angelique Kerber’s comeback has some lessons for the wider world as well: about persistence, about overcoming weaknesses by developing your strengths, and about sticking to your very fine game plan in a Wimbledon final against an opponent of superior power and experience.

Kerber struggled last season after winning two Grand Slam titles in 2016 and moving up to the No. 1 ranking. But at 30, she has made an emphatic return to the top, reaching the semi-final of the Australian Open in January and then winning the trophy she has long wanted most by defeating Williams, 6-3, 6-3, on Saturday.

“No way,” Kerber said as she stared at her name on the board of champions inside the clubhouse after the match. “That was always a dream of mine.”

Kerber grew up watching her role model, Steffi Graf, win Wimbledon on television, including the last of Graf’s seven victories here, which came in 1996.

Now, 22 years later, Kerber has given Germany another women’s singles champion at Wimbledon and also given her country something of a sporting lift.

“After a really embarrassing World Cup, we needed something,” Boris Becker, the former Wimbledon men’s champion from Germany, said in comments to the BBC.

Williams, seeded No. 25 but ranked just 181st in the fourth tournament of her comeback, was far from her best Saturday, far from the form she displayed in her resounding semi-final victory over Julia Goerges, Kerber’s German compatriot.

The women’s final began about two hours later than scheduled because of the completion of the men’s semi-final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, which had been suspended on Friday night.

Williams looked on edge from the start, making a series of unforced errors in the opening two games. But that was also a credit to the steady play and nerves of Kerber, who would make only five unforced errors in the entire match.

Seeded 11th, Kerber played a remarkable, purposeful final – absorbing pace as she does as well as anyone in tennis but also being bold when she needed it.

“I feel Angie started the tournament a bit slow and more with her older game, with just running and fighting,” her coach, Wim Fissette, said. “And after the second round she decided that, ‘With this tennis, I’m not going to win. So I have to play my offensive tennis, especially when I need it.’”

Against Williams, Kerber won the first set with her signature shot: a forehand winner down the line. And when Kerber served for the match in the second set, Williams threw up a high defensive shot at 30-30 that landed deep, a shot that required Kerber to generate the pace. She did not shrink from the responsibility: she nailed another forehand down the line that landed on the opposite baseline with a puff of chalk for another winner.

When Williams lost the next point, the final point, with a backhand return into the net, Kerber dropped her racket, pitched forward onto her knees and began to cry as she lay on the grass and the dirt.

When she eventually rose to her feet and dusted herself off as best she could, she and Williams met on Kerber’s side of the net for an extended embrace and conversation.

This is becoming a Grand Slam tradition, this contrast of styles. And Kerber has now won two of their three duels in major finals: defeating Williams in the 2016 Australian Open final, losing to Williams in the 2016 Wimbledon final and winning on Saturday.

Kerber, who also won the U.S. Open in 2016, has now won three of the four Grand Slam singles titles, lacking only the French Open.

Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon champion, has won all four majors at least three times, but, for now, her total remains at 23: one short of Court’s record.

Fissette, a Belgian who has coached a number of leading players, said he was convinced Williams would get to 24.

“I think it’s amazing where she is right now,” he said. “I saw her also at the beginning of the tournament, where I don’t think she played well, but how she’s able to raise her level.”

Fissette said he felt Williams’s relatively easy draw, in which she faced no seeded players in the first five rounds, might have made it difficult for her to find the necessary gear on Saturday.

“I feel like she didn’t really get challenged, and I think that’s something she missed,” he said. “But her movement keeps getting better. Her shots are always very good, and I feel she just missed experience in matches against a really top player who is rock solid, like Angie.”

Williams has spoken about the delights of playing freely with nothing to lose during her matches at Wimbledon this year, but on Saturday she played and sounded like a champion who was feeling the pressure.

“To all the moms out there, I was playing for you today, and I tried,” she said, tearing up in her postmatch interview on court.

Williams had played – and won – the 2017 Australian Open while two months pregnant, but she did not play again on tour until 13 months later. She gave birth to her daughter, Olympia, on Sept. 1 and suffered complications after her cesarean section, including a pulmonary embolism.

Williams acknowledged she may have come back too soon, and struggled with her fitness and her timing in her four matches in March, losing two of them. She took another two-month break before returning for the French Open in late May, winning three matches before withdrawing with a pectoral injury. With six more victories at Wimbledon, Williams at least assured herself of a much-better ranking, one that will rise to 28 on Monday.

“I was really happy to get this far,” she said after the match, adding: “I’m literally just getting started.”

New York Times News Service

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