THE FATHER of the Wimbledon champion went home to mow the grass. The mother stayed to watch and sat passively with her arms folded, not clapping until the fourth match point was decisive in favour of Serena Williams. Within the family, and for everyone else, there cannot be much emotion or passion when two sisters, and close ones at that, contest a major championship. Instead of triumph and bitterness, there is a strange blend of simultaneous pleasure, though not too much, and slight disappointment.

There was quality to admire, especially in the flat-out back-of-the court hitting that has been their staple since they learnt the drills their father gave them on the municipal cement courts in Compton, a suburb of Los Angeles. Serena picked up the winner’s trophy and Venus was runner-up because she was better on the day. She was up for it as well, bringing an intensity that seemed missing from her older sister. Once, when she hit a winner to take a critical lead in the tiebreak and Venus fell over, biting the dust around the baseline, she pumped her fist in self-appreciation, showing no concern at all for her sister.

“I want her to win and do well at all times,” Serena said when she had secured her third Wimbledon and 11th Grand Slam title. But she showed no sign of such generosity during the match.

Adorned with all manner of jewellery, Serena hit with her usual ferocity, a growl of hate, but it was hatred not for her opponent but the ball. Venus, with no jewellery at all but a visor to keep off the sun and a brace for her dodgy left knee, was off form. In the semi-final, when she slaughtered the world No 1 Dinara Safina, she had been ruthless, hardly making an error.

Venus was flat yesterday and the mistakes, which started with a double fault on the first point of the match, proliferated. Rarely did she take the initiative by going to the net. When it was going against her, she did not change tactics. “I was too far behind the baseline towards the end,” Venus said. “I couldn’t afford to make errors. I wish I had done a few things different.” That was a shame, for Venus is the more accomplished as a pure tennis player. Serena is the slugger, the powerhouse athlete, and can be nothing else; Venus at her best combines power with the gliding movement of the dancer, and she can play with finesse. But after winning 34 consecutive sets at Wimbledon, she was unable to match Serena’s power and will to win.

Serena can be ungainly when the ball comes to her awkwardly, and she made a few spectacular errors, but she played the best and most creative shot of the match: on set point in the first-set tiebreak, she saw Venus coming to the net for once, and left her stranded with a backhand lob.

Between them, the sisters have dominated Wimbledon for almost a decade. There has only been one final since the turn of the century in which one or other has not participated. Four times they have played each other. The last finalist who was not a Williams was Marion Bartoli, the plucky Frenchwoman easily beaten by Venus in 2007. How Bartoli managed to reach a Wimbledon final remains a mystery.

It is an extraordinary achievement for two women from relatively deprived backgrounds to dominate a worldwide sport. They have been tremendous athletes and their father, Richard, has to be saluted. He knew nothing about tennis when he decided to turn his daughters into champions, yet he has achieved more than any expert or coach.

The other side of that coin cannot be avoided. Their plunder has been greatly facilitated by the general weakness of the women’s game. When Venus beat Safina in the semi-final, she lost just one game. “There are so many great players out there who win every week,” Serena said. The truth is that the sisters from the wrong side of the tracks, who have worked so hard, are in a class of their own. Good for them.