Better serving from Federer including three aces won him the third set tiebreaker. In set four Nadal led 5-2 in the tiebreaker and held a matchpoint at 7-6 before Federer stepped up his groundstrokes with a backhand and a forehand winner to take the set 10-8 in the tiebreaker.

At 5-4 30 all in the final set, Federer stood just two points from the championship title before Nadal evened the match at 7 all with the time approaching 9:00pm in London after two rain delays had prolonged the match.

Nadal broke Federer's final service game to reach 8-7 after two Federer forehand errors he would later blame on a darkened sky. Federer saved another matchpoint before committing two final forehand errors to fall out of the match.

The Williams sisters played one of their best contests as Serena Williams took a 3-1 early lead hitting winner after winner. Venus Williams would cut her errors however as Serena's level of play would drop with Venus taking set one 7-5.

In set two Venus dropped her serve in a seven deuce game after falling on the grasscourt with Serena hitting a crosscourt forehand winner to reach 1-2. Three groundstroke errors from Serena leveled the set at 2 all.

The set remained on serve with Venus reaching 5-4 by continuing her pattern of hitting speedy serves into the Serena body to blunt Serena's outstanding return game.

In the final game with Serena serving, Serena missed two forehands before a Venus backhand down the line winner positioned her at matchpoint. Serena saved the first of two matchpoints with an ace out wide, but hit a backhand down the line wide to end the game.

With the win, Venus earned her fifth Wimbledon singles title, only two titles short of Steffi Graf of Germany's seven and four away from Martina Navratilova's all time ladies' record of nine Wimbledon singles titles.