Wimbledon final preview: Serena and Angie, again

After a volatile first week that saw nine of the top 10 seeds fall, the back half of the Wimbledon women's draw has played out more or less as expected, with the only two Grand Slam champions to reach the second week advancing to meet in the final.

Serena Williams, just five months and four tournaments removed from maternity leave, is aiming to capture her eighth Wimbledon and 24th (!) Grand Slam title. To do so, she'll have to go through Angelique Kerber, who's vying for her first Wimbledon and third Slam title. It's a matchup that's become familiar, particularly on the sport's biggest stages, and this will be something of a belated rubber match. Kerber beat Serena in the 2016 Australian Open final, and Serena returned the favor at that year's Wimbledon. They haven't played each other since.

Two years on, things look different, and the same. Serena is the mother of a 10-month-old girl, has another frightening brush with blood clots in her rearview, is ranked 181st and seeded 25th due to a paucity of match play, and is still working her way back into peak form while navigating the physical balancing act of motherhood and athletic supremacy. She also, quite clearly, remains the most dominant force in women's tennis - her serve and ground game untouched by her peers, ever more daunting on grass. Meanwhile, after a yearlong hangover following the party that was her breakout 2016 season, Kerber has steadied herself in 2018 and is peaking at the right time, once again establishing herself as perhaps the most credible threat to Serena.

What's fun about this matchup between former world No. 1s is how each player is uniquely qualified to both test the limits of the other's strengths and prod at the other's weaknesses; how each needs to force the other to play on her own terms. Kerber's fleet-footed defense has to hold up against Serena's brutally efficient attack; Serena's grass-burning serve has to puncture Kerber's world-class return; Kerber has to try to extend points, Serena needs to keep them short.

That sets up a fascinating chess match. If Serena can't end points quickly from the baseline, she may have to find her way to the net, but that leaves her vulnerable to passing shots from Kerber, who deployed them masterfully in that Aussie Open final. On the other side, Kerber - who, with her crouching groundstrokes from on top of the baseline, is as good as anyone in the world at absorbing pace - can't just be relegated to playing defense. She'll have to turn points around, go on the offensive, open up the court, and keep Serena on the move.

In some ways, Kerber's semifinal was a good warmup. She had to deal with Jelena Ostapenko - one of the few players on tour who approximates Serena's firepower off the ground - and completely flummoxed her with dogged retrieving and superior court coverage. But she can't rely on Serena to make as many mistakes as the flammable young Latvian did, and certainly can't expect to make as much headway in the return game as she did against Ostapenko's ho-hum first serve and attackable second.

Serena is coming off an astonishingly clean semifinal performance in which she made just seven unforced errors and lost just four first-serve points against Julia Goerges. Much like at the French Open, she had to grind a bit through the early part of the tournament, but has steadily found a rhythm and has displayed increasingly few vulnerabilities with each passing match.

The last time they met at Wimbledon, Serena overwhelmed Kerber and won in straight sets. But given the circumstances, and the (very different) roller coasters each woman has ridden back to this point, you almost have to toss precedent out the window.

"This is a different one," Serena said. "She's playing so well. I think she's incredibly confident. Yeah, I have to be ready for the match of my life."

Kerber will have to remain incredibly confident on Saturday if she's to swing the upset. Camila Giorgi had an opening in the quarters, up a set with a break in sight in the second. But she blinked at 0-30 on Serena's serve with a couple bad misses, and the door slammed shut on her in a hurry. Kerber is a far better and more complete player, with a Plan B, C, and D that Giorgi decidedly lacks, but the principle remains: let up against Serena for even a second and you're inviting her to roll over you.

Having beaten her in a Slam final before should help, but Kerber has no illusions about what she's up against. Asked what she sees when she looks across the net and finds Serena standing there, Kerber responded: "I see a champion, that's for sure."

Merely a 23-time Grand Slam champion, for now. Kerber would love to keep it that way.

The pick: Serena in three sets