WIMBLEDON, England — Serena Williams served two aces in a row at 118 miles per hour, straight up the middle in the first set. In her next service game, she served up two more aces, also up the middle, but one of them was on a second serve.
A few points later, Williams won a game with a 113-m.p.h. serve out wide. Maria Sharapova could only shake her head.
If Williams was going to do that well on all of her various serves and also use her athleticism to smother the court, there would be little recourse even for someone as competitive as Sharapova, and a familiar pattern would hold.