Simona Halep wins Wimbledon title after cruising past Serena Williams in straight sets for maiden SW19 crown

Simona Halep produced one of the finest performances of her career to take her first Wimbledon title and deny Serena Williams a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam singles triumph.

Williams arrived as favourite, looking to match Margaret Court’s career Slam haul with an eighth SW19 triumph, but was dominated from the outset by the outstanding Halep, who romped to a straight sets victory 6-2, 6-2.

Playing in her first Wimbledon final, Halep momentarily looked as if the nerves may trouble her, planting her first shot of the day into the centre of the net.

On the very next point, however, she clicked into gear, with a terrific cross-court winner, and went on to break the Williams serve twice in succession to race into a 4-0 lead, stunning the out-of-sorts American, and the Centre Court crowd, with her speed and movement.

Williams finally got on the board, holding to love in her third service game, and briefly threatened a first-set turnaround when bringing up break point in the next, but again hit wide under little pressure and Halep recovered to hold, before serving out the set 6-2.

In Pictures | Wimbledon 2019

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Williams began the second set in incredibly vocal fashion, even by her standards, letting out an almighty roar at the net when taking the first game.

By now, Williams had belatedly found her rhythm on serve, but struggled to stem the flow of errors against a foot-perfect Halep, who held to love to make it 2-2 in the second.

Under relentless pressure from the Romanian, who extended rally after rally with her tireless work rate, Williams then missed the simplest of winners to hand Halep what would be the pivotal break.

Unperturbed by a kind net cord gifting Williams a 15-30 lead in the next game, Halep confidently rattled off three points in a row to consolidate the break and never looked back.

Another break quickly followed after advantage swung one way and then the other at deuce on the Williams serve, teeing up the chance to serve for the title inside an hour.

With the ruthless efficiency she’d showed throughout a remarkably brief final, Halep did just that, to secure only her second career Grand Slam title, to go with her French Open triumph of last year.

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