After the comeback of former WTA #1s Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, the Belgians seemed to threaten the leadership of Serena Williams at the WTA Tour. But at the Australian Open Williams has confirmed that she still is strongest player.
Williams stormed through the early rounds defeating Urszula Radwanska, Petra Kvitova and Carla Suarez and dropping just 3 games on each match. In the Last-16 round, 13th seed Samantha Stousr wasn't a big deal either, and Williams defeated her in straight sets. But in the quarter-final, Serena had to face a critical moment, being 6/4 4/0 down to Victoria Azarenka. She even thought she was out of the tournament, but then played her best to come back and win the match. In the semis another tough match against Chinese Na Li, who had defeated her sister Venus. But Serena avenged her and defeated the Chinese in two tie-breaks. And then the final everyone was expecting, the current #1 against the former #1 coming back to the Tour, Justine Henin. Williams was in control of the first set, which she took by 6/4. Then in the 2nd set Henin played some amazing tennis to win 5 games in a row, taking the set 6/3 and the lead in the third. But Williams got the momentum back to take the final set.
With this title Serena became the only woman to win the Australian Open 5 times in the Open Era, and with 12th Grand Slam titles tied with Billie Jean King on the all-time list just behind Court, Graf, Wills Moody, Navratilova and Evert.
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