In one of the fastest Wimbledon semifinals ever, world No. 1 and defending champion Serena Williams beat Elena Vesnina 6–2, 6–0 to advance to her ninth career final at the All England Club. Hitting 11 aces, no double faults, and 28 winners, Williams demolished the world’s 50th-ranked player in 48 minutes, the fastest Wimbledon semifinal since Lindsay Davenport beat Alexandra Stevenson in just 47 minutes in 1999. Williams never even faced a break point.
“I’m very happy, I was really focused because I knew we’ve had some tough matches before,” Williams said after the match. That characterization was charitable at best, considering Serena had won all four of their previous matchups without coming close to dropping a set.
Williams has been chasing Steffi Graf’s record of 22 major titles since last year. (Margaret Court won 24 grand slam singles titles, though just 11 of them were in tennis’s Open Era.) At the 2015 U.S. Open, she had the chance to win the record-tying slam—and notch a calendar grand slam to boot—but she lost a three-setter to relative unknown Roberta Vinci in the semifinals. While that loss was a shock, Williams’ dominance has been so complete that her 22nd major was still a question of when not if. Then she lost the 2016 Australian Open final to Angelique Kerber in a tight three sets. And then she lost the 2016 French Open final to underdog Garbine Muguruza of Spain, 7–5, 6–4.
On Saturday, Williams will again face Kerber, who beat Serena’s sister Venus in straight sets to advance to the final. While everyone waits to see if Serena will finally get the elusive 22, let’s not forget these other numbers: 300, the number of weeks Williams has been ranked No. 1 in the world; 6,* the number of Grand Slam finals she’s reached in the last year and a half; 92, her career WTA singles and doubles titles; 21, the number of grand slam singles titles she already has, which is not too shabby.
*Correction, July 7, 2016: This post originally misstated the number of major finals Serena Williams had made in the past year and a half. She has reached six.
