After the best hour of tennis she ever played, Simona Halep dropped to her knees and beamed at her box in disbelief. The Romanian had just bamboozled and outclassed the greatest female tennis player in the modern game in the 2019 Wimbledon final, in doing so claiming her second grand slam title. She hit just three unforced errors in the entire match and a sentence rarely uttered came to mind: Serena Williams was powerless.
It felt like a seismic moment, not just for Halep but for women’s tennis and the next generation behind the Williams sisters. In her prime years at 27, Halep reclaimed her world No 1 ranking and her rise seemed limitless.
