As the grass season approaches the Wimbledon championships, Serena Williams remains the last woman to win two consecutive singles titles at the All England Club.
Williams won the tournament in 2015 and went back-to-back in 2016, when she won her 22nd Grand Slam, defeating Angelique Kerber in the final.
The American finished her career with the joint-second most Wimbledon titles of any woman in the Open Era, with seven, trailing only Martina Navratilova, who won nine crowns in South West London.
She retired in September 2022, finishing her playing career at the US Open that year, ending one of the greatest runs in tennis history.
From an early age, Williams was destined for success, which former US Open champion Andy Roddick noticed after playing a match against her when he was younger.
Photo by Julian Finney/Getty ImagesWhat happened when Serena Williams faced Andy Roddick
When asked on Tennis Channel Live if Roddick had ever played Venus Williams or Serena, he gave a surprising response.
Roddick said: “So you ask that jokingly – I lost a practice set to Serena. We were at Macci’s together.
“My career record against Serena is 0-1. I lost a set 6-4 when we were like 10. We were pretty much the same age.
“But I was dodging raindrops, and at that age, she was already bench pressing dump trucks!”
The different winners at Wimbledon since Serena Williams went back-to-back in 2016
Following Williams’ back-to-back triumphs at Wimbledon in 2015 and 2016, there has been a different winner at the championships every year since then.
The 2017 final featured a matchup between Venus Williams and Garbine Muguruza, in which the Spaniard came out on top.
Serena returned to the final in the next two years, but lost to Kerber in 2018 and Simona Halep in 2019.
In 2021, the championship match was the first in five years without one of the Williams sisters and saw Ashleigh Barty overcome Karolina Pliskova.
Elena Rybakina emerged victorious in 2022 over Ons Jabeur, who reached the final again in 2023, losing once more to Marketa Vondrousova.
Barbora Krejcikova, the defending champion, defeated Jasmine Paolini last year to hold the trophy aloft on Centre Court.