WOMEN'S SINGLES FINAL: SERENA WILLIAMS rocked in to the press conference on Saturday and torched the WTA ranking system. Over three days last week her sister Venus defeated world number one Dinara Safina 6-0, 6-1 in the singles semi-final. The pair then demolished the world number one doubles team 6-1, 6-2, before Serena prevented her sister from making it three Wimbledon titles in succession by winning the women's final 7-6, 6-2.

Venus had not dropped a set at Wimbledon since the third round in 2007.

The pair took a short rest and then teamed up to beat the Australian pair of Samantha Stosur and Rennae Stubbs 7-6, 6-4 in the women’s doubles final.

That’s a decent weekend’s work for a player who is ranked number two in the world. But for Williams the ranking has only ever been a device for keeping herself and her sister apart until the final days of a Grand Slam. After the singles win, she was asked if she was motivated to regain the number one position.

“You know, I’m not super motivated,” she said. “I think if you hold three Grand Slam titles maybe you should be number one, but not on the WTA tour, obviously.”

At that stage she couldn’t hold back the sneering laughter. It was the one time any of the Williams family broke their policy of measured respect for opponents and women’s tennis. It was as if she had just had an epiphany. The US Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon title-holder, who is not the number one player because the computer says so, seemed at that moment to see the perfect absurdity of the situation.

Then, in one withering remark about Safina’s winning credentials, she unmasked herself.

“You know, my motivation is just to win another Grand Slam and stay number two, I guess. I think Dinara did a great job to get to number one. She won Rome and Madrid.”

Rome and Madrid are warm-up clay court events before the French Open and will never figure as serious ambitions of Williams, who struggles on the clay even at her best. But in denying she was disappointed in being number two she inadvertently revealed more.

“No (I’m not disappointed). If I was I would just go crazy thinking about it. I think anyone really could. That’s just shocking. But whatever, it is what it is. I’d rather definitely be number two and hold three Grand Slams in the past year than be number one.”

One or two, she is now beginning to be mentioned along with the greats as her 11th Grand Slam singles title puts her alongside Billy Jean King. But there are others. Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova have 18 singles each and Steffi Graf 22, including a 1988 Grand Slam. Williams has yet to win at Roland Garros.

“Since the beginning of my career I never said that I wanted to chase down their records. You’re asking me about 18. I’m like only at 11. I can’t even put myself in a sentence with the greatest because I think of people like Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf and Billy Jean King . . . to be even mentioned with those people is a real honour for me.”

At 27, she has time to make a credible attempt to grab seven more titles, with the main hurdle obviously her sister, who is 29. They have now met in eight Grand Slam finals, but there are few who relish the prospect of them meeting in many more, although that seems highly likely after another high-octane slugging match that no other players could have matched. Once again, it was curiously passionless.

The first set was conducted at a comparatively sedate pace and in front of a muted audience. In the eighth game a frisson swept through the stadium as Serena went two break points down. But a difficult bounce and an over-hit forehand from Venus gave her little sister the reprieve and she never again looked in trouble, winning the tiebreak 7-3.

In the second set it began to unravel for Venus as her service game failed. At one stage, after 2-2, one of her second deliveries trailed across to Serena at 66mph. Venus then double faulted on a break point for 2-4 and Serena served a game to love for 5-2.

All was lost for the older sibling and her final service game was a catalogue of errors. Still, she faced and fought off three match points before a backhand on the fourth found the net.

“I think Serena and I, we both expect from ourselves great results,” said Venus. “So at the moment we’re just pushing for everything that we can.”