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    Roger Federer

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Venus Williams says she would love to match Martina Navratilova's record of nine Wimbledon titles after her fifth triumph on Centre Court.

Williams defeated younger sister Serena 7-5 6-4 in Saturday's final, recovering from a break down in each set to successfully defend her title.

The 28-year-old could already have had seven titles, having lost to Serena in the final here in 2002 and 2003, and is now looking to move up from fourth place in the Wimbledon singles hall of fame in the modern era behind Navratilova (nine), Steffi Graf (seven) and Billie-Jean King (six).

Asked about matching Navratilova, who watched the final on Centre Court, Williams said: "Oh my God. That would be the ultimate.

"That's not easy. Her career spanned like three decades, so I'm not sure if I have that much time. If I did, I think I would definitely dream of that.

"Tennis is so much different now. Tennis is a big business now, all the tournaments, the players. The pressures are different."

Schedule

One thing in Williams' favour is the limited schedule she tends to play, either by choice or through injury.

Wimbledon was only her eighth tournament of the year - the same as Serena - and she added: "I've had my fair share of downtime,

I try to stay as fresh as I can."

An all-Williams final was a common occurrence when the pair first began to dominate; they contested five of the six grand slam finals between the 2002 French Open and Wimbledon in 2003, but that was the last time until Saturday they had met at such a stage.

The feeling persists that the siblings could achieve such dominance again if they were not distracted by their off-court activities, and Venus was at least making all the right noises.

"I would love that," she added.

"The main goal for both of us is to stay healthy. We've both worked really hard this year and I think the results showed here, both in the singles and the doubles (which the sisters won for the third time just hours after the singles final).

"The goal is to stay healthy so that way we can play singles and doubles and have a lot of fun with it."

Saturday's final was not a classic, and was never likely to be with the sisters knowing so much about each other's play.

But thankfully for those who dredged up tired conspiracy theories about the result being decided in advance, it was a true contest filled with thunderous groundstrokes and massive serving.

"I think the level of play was really high," admitted Venus, who fired down one serve at 129mph, a Wimbledon record.

"I think a lot of the times one of us was overpowering the other. I hit a hard ball on the line, she can't get it back.

"Or I tried to go for too much because I'm anticipating that she's gonna run my shot down. Or I hit a huge serve, she hits one I can't return. In between we had some really competitive rallies and intense points where one player would come back and take the point, when it looked like the other player was going to win.

"We're both very powerful and I think it showed out there."

Serena's post-match press conference also showed how much the result mattered to her, the 26-year-old very downcast after missing out on a third Wimbledon title.

"I don't think I played well," she said.

"I don't think I'm satisfied with the way I played today, for me there's nothing to be satisfied about.

"She lifted the level of her game and I should have lifted mine, but instead I think mine went down. I just lost rhythm and then I made a lot of errors. I just couldn't get the balls in. Nothing I was doing was seeming to work."

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