Venus Williams’s fourth Wimbledon title was so rich with historical significance that is was hard to know which history book to flick through first. Not only did her 6-4, 6-1 victory over France’s Marion Bartoli fall on the 50th Anniversary of African-American pioneer Althea Gibson winning Wimbledon; it also ensured that Williams joined an elite group of four with Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Billie-Jean King, all of whom won four or more Wimbledon singles titles. To cap it all, Williams, who has long been a vocal advocate of equal prize money, became the first woman to take home the same sized All England Club cheque as her male equivalent.

True, it wasn’t the greatest final Centre Court had ever seen. It was not even the best women’s match of the tournament, an honour which went to Bartoli’s upset over Justine Henin in the semi-finals – and it required nowhere near the amount of grit Williams required to beat Lindsay Davenport from match-point down in the 2005 Wimbledon final. Yet, for all that, it was a sizeable achievement, one which secures Williams’s position as the finest grass-court player of her generation.

She now has double the number of Wimbledon titles that her sister Serena has and though Amelie Mauresmo was champion last year, Henin has yet to win despite two final appearances. There is something about Wimbledon, and, specifically Centre Court, which inspires Venus Williams and turns her from the mediocre scrapper that stumbled past Alla Kudryavtseva in the first round, Hana Smorova in the second round and Akiko Morigami in the third round. From then on, as the title got nearer, Williams tightened up her game and cut down the errors. By the time she got to Maria Sharapova in the fourth round, she had metamorphasised into Venus Williams – Wimbledon champion in waiting.

“I would not give up any of the other wins, of course. This win, it's so much different from the others because the other ones I felt like I was playing in championship form from minute one,” said Williams, clearly forgetting quite how scratchy those early performances were. “Here I really had to focus on my game, you know, overcome a lot of challenges, including obviously being seeded low, those kinds of things.

But all in all, it's wonderful. But, I mean, the last time I won, it was a really outrageous way to win. I keep that trophy by my bed. That's the only one I keep close to me. I don't know if it can replace that trophy, but it's so wonderful.”

Bartoli must be congratulated, of course, for reaching the final and not flaking out when she got there. She battled well to make the first set a contest and though Williams was too strong in the second, the Frenchwoman provided entertainment to the last. Afterwards she thanked her father Walter, who has been coaching her since the juniors and who was courtside. There was a lovely moment after Bartoli thanked her, when Richard Williams went up and embraced him, an act of fatherly empathy which caused Walter Bartoli to dissolve into tears and end up wrapped in a bear hug.

It was a good day all around for American tennis, which saw Madison Brengle and Donald Young reach the junior finals. Brengle, who was runner-up to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the Australian Open junior final in January, will play Poland’s Urszula Radwanska. Young, who won the junior Australian Open in 2005, will take on junior French Open champion Vladimir Ignatic of Belarus.