Can Williams sisters rediscover their ‘mojo’ at SW19?

In years gone by you would have been inclined to attempt to adjust your television set if you tuned into the women’s final and found neither of the Williams sisters lifting the trophy at its conclusion.

Their father Richard may well have taken a debenture in the players’ box at grand slam finals, such was the regularity with which they both reached and won them.

Twenty slam singles titles between them should be enough to guarantee tennis immortality, before a dozen shared doubles crowns are thrown into the equation.

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With their hefty résumés also boasting Olympic medals, No 1 rankings and gargantuan sums of prize money, their achievements are all the more spellbinding.

Serena is undoubtedly the greatest player of the modern era and Venus is barely more than a couple of steps behind.

But all good things must come to an end. The question for 31-year-old Venus and her one-year-younger sister Serena is whether that time is now.

The last occasion either of them won a grand slam singles title was two years ago at Wimbledon when Serena saw off Vera Zvonareva.

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Since then, seven major finals have passed and only one has featured a Williams – Serena losing out to Sam Stosur at Flushing Meadows in 2010.

Injury and illness had caught up with them both in different ways, but since when did nature and time stop for anyone?

Many a sporting great has snuck out of the back door rather than leaving through the front on their own terms.

There is nothing to say Venus or Serena cannot reclaim their places at the head of the game, but the challenge is clearly a hard one.

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In their absence there has been a flurry of new world No 1s and fresh-faced champions, with the likes of Victoria Azarenka, Petra Kvitova and Li Na all lifting trophies, while others such as Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki have been at the top of the rankings, only to fail to validate this with any kind of grand slam success. The change has been refreshing after the Williams’s era of dominance but, equally, it has still brought about some complaints.

Where observers once bemoaned the way Venus and Serena held court to the detriment of the rest of the women’s professional tour, concerns now exist over why no one can reach the top and stay there in the way the sisters once did. None of those to have emerged during their fallow period have done so with any real conviction. They have all achieved what appeared to be landmark wins, only to slump out of the next tournament with barely a whimper.

And looking back, that was part of the majesty of the Williams sisters, their insatiable appetite for success.

No one on the tour knows how to tackle a tournament like they do and, if nerves or inexperience have prevented any of the new wave of players from maintaining a consistent challenge, then they also tick that box.

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It seems that, despite all the concerns and gripes about how the Williams sisters dominated for far too long, that the game needs at least one of them to get their mojo back. With nine Wimbledon titles between them, who would back against this being the place that it occurs?

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