It takes a lot to beat one of Serena and Venus Williams in a Grand Slam final, let alone both of them.
Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam singles titles in her career, which is more than any other woman in the Open Era.
Many of the Grand Slam finals for Serena saw her play older sister Venus in the final, with the younger of the two Williams sisters winning seven of those nine finals.
They also played many of the same opponents in Grand Slam finals including Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin and Martina Hingis, but only one player has beaten them both in a major final.
Garbine Muguruza: The only player to beat the Williams sisters in Grand Slam finals
That player is Garbine Muguruza, the Spaniard who actually lost to Serena Williams in the Wimbledon final in 2015.
Despite having that experience of losing her first Grand Slam final in straight sets, Muguruza has admitted she actually wanted to play Serena in the French Open final less than a year later.
Muguruza was right to feel this way, as she enacted revenge on Serena to win the French Open and become the first Spanish woman to win a Grand Slam title since Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in 1998.
The Spaniard had been unable to surpass the quarterfinals of her next four major tournaments, but that all changed when Muguruza arrived at Wimbledon in 2017.
Muguruza was arriving to Wimbledon in mixed form, having reached the semifinals in Birmingham, but she had also been thrashed by Barbora Strycova in Eastbourne, winning just one game in her last match before Wimbledon.
However, Muguruza was able to put this behind her and beat top seed Angelique Kerber en route to reaching her second Wimbledon final.
The last time she had reached the final at Wimbledon she lost to Serena Williams, but this time she faced a 37-year-old Venus Williams.
Moving on from that defeat, Muguruza emphatically beat Venus, 7-5 6-0, to make history, as she became the first player to have beaten both Serena and Venus Williams in a Grand Slam final.
Why Garbine Muguruza said she was ‘excited’ before final with Venus Williams
It would have been understandable if Muguruza had suffered some mental baggage from her first Wimbledon final defeat against Serena, but in her post-match press conference she admitted that she was actually looking forward to playing Venus.
“When I knew I was playing Venus in the final, I was actually looking forward for it,” Muguruza said at the time. “You know, people were surprised when I said in French Open, that I had Serena in the final.
“No, I’m like, But that’s the final. A Wimbledon final with Serena and Venus… You know, she won five times, so she knows how to play.
“For me was a challenge to have her, growing up watching her play. Everybody start laughing. But, in fact, is something incredible. I don’t know, I was so excited to go out there and win, especially over somebody like a role model.”
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Muguruza was able to find more success later that year, and therefore became world number one for four weeks in 2017.
The Spaniard reached her fourth Grand Slam final at the Australian Open in 2020, but she lost on this occasion to Sofia Kenin.
Muguruza announced her retirement from tennis in 2024, and she is now the tournament director of the WTA Finals, where she won the title in 2021.
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