Ranking Serena Williams' 5 Greatest Grand Slam Final Victories

With Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic falling at the semifinals in the men's draw, the U.S. Open spotlight fell on Serena Williams as she looked to tie Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova with 18 Grand Slam singles titles.

As tends to be the case when it comes to Williams and Grand Slam finals—she now boasts an astonishing 18-4 record—she delivered by defeating Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 6-3 to win her third U.S. Open in a row.

As Williams approaches her 33^rd birthday, only time will tell whether her 2014 triumph at Flushing Meadows will be her final Grand Slam title. Catching Steffi Graf's total of 22 will be a tall order. Either way, she has firmly secured herself as one of the all-time greats of the women's game.

The following are Williams' five finest, and most memorable, Grand Slam final victories:

Honorable Mentions

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Serena with her first title, the U.S. Open, in 1999

Serena Williams has appeared in at least one Grand Slam final every year since 2001 (with the exception of 2006, for reasons we'll come to later), and has never gone longer than two years between winning one since capturing her second at the French Open in 2002.

You always remember your first, as they say, and for Williams it came at the U.S. Open in 1999 against Martina Hingis, who remains the youngest Grand Slam winner of all time at 16 years old. Going into the final, she already had five Grand Slam titles; Williams, in contrast, hadn’t even reached a quarterfinal prior to the tournament, but blew the Swiss away in straight sets. Hingis never won another Grand Slam; Williams, as we know, has gone on to win 17 more since the turn of the century.

There were also too many to choose from against her older sister, Venus Williams, against whom she has competed in eight Grand Slam finals, triumphing in six. Rest easy: the duo do feature, but not all could squeeze in. Read on to find out which ones did:

5. 2003 Australian Open: S. Williams vs. V. Williams, 7-6, 3-6, 6-4

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Serena celebrates completing her Career Grand Slam at the age of 21

2002-03 remains the only time in the Open era that the same two players have contested four consecutive Grand Slam finals. That's quite astonishing considering the likes of Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters were competing for titles at this point, too.

Serena had won the previous three against Venus in 2002, still the only calendar year in the 21^st century in which a woman has won three Slams. The previous three, however, had all been won in straight sets by the ruthless Serena in fairly uneventful finals.

She was made to sweat far more this time, though, in making it four in a row, with Venus serving for the first set before clinching the second. But despite registering more errors, Serena won 38-27 on the winners count, helping her firmly establish herself as the finest player in the world at the expense of her older sister.

Venus had four Slams to Serena’s one prior to this cycle, but in less than 12 months she had been overtaken by her own flesh and blood. For Serena, the victory completed the career Grand Slam at age 21, a feat only Steffi Graf betters in the Open era.

4. 2010 Australian Open: S. WIlliams vs. J. Henin, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2

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Two of the finest players to grace the women's game finally went head-to-head in a Slam final

Following Justine Henin's retirement from tennis in 2008, the Australian Open hosted a final in 2010 many tennis fans had feared would never arrive in Serena Williams vs. Henin. The two had famously clashed at the 2003 French Open semifinal, which broke Williams' streak of Grand Slams, but had never met in a final.

It represented pure power vs. fantastic finesse, and arguably the finest serve vs. the finest backhand of all-time.

Surely the two finest women players post-Graf, the two had 18 Grand Slams between them at the time, with Henin appearing as a wild card at her first Slam since her retirement.

It looked as though Williams, the defending champion, would overpower Henin after the Belgian gifted the first set with a double fault and netted backhand. However, the overwhelming crowd favorite won four games on the bounce in the second set to force a third-set thriller.

But Williams held her nerve to win a record fifth Australian title, moving level with Billie Jean King on 12 Slams in the process.

Surprisingly, she hasn't won in Australia since, while Henin never appeared in a Grand Slam final again, definitively retiring a year later.

3. 2013 French Open: S. Williams vs. M. Sharapova, 6-4, 6-4

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Williams celebrates her first French Open in more than a decade

Williams and Maria Sharapova went into the French Open final as fierce rivals, and as No. 1 and 2 in the world, respectively. Williams hadn’t won the French title in more than a decade and was knocked out in the first round of a Slam for the first time in her career at Roland Garros in 2012. Sharapova had gone on to win that tournament to complete her own career Grand Slam, following in Williams' footsteps.

But it was the American who was expected to prevail having vastly improved her clay-court game, delivering one of the finest performances ever seen by a woman on clay in the eyes of Chris Evert, as per ESPN, in the semifinal.

And so it proved, with Serena producing a routine straight-sets victory—in a disappointingly low-key match given the build-up—to pull one behind Evert (and Martina Navratilova) on 17 Grand Slam titles.

But the fact that Sharapova once again won at Roland Garros earlier this year shows the scale of Williams' achievement in having made it look so easy.

2. 2003 Wimbledon: S. Williams vs. V. Williams, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2

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Williams with a 21-year-old Roger Federer, who had just won his first Slam at Wimbledon 2003.

After a brief Williams-finals hiatus at the 2003 French Open—clay being neither players’ natural surface anyway—the dominant sisters were back at it again for the second consecutive Wimbledon.

Despite Venus visibly suffering from an ongoing abdominal strain, Serena was forced to produce only the first of two come-from-behind Grand Slam final victories to date.

After Venus had taken a 4-0 lead in the first set, Serena fought back, only to misjudge a high ball to hand the set to her sister.

But she soon powered to a 5-1 lead in the second, with Venus' serve clearly hampered by her stomach strapping. The elder sister was forced off the court in the third, and from there it was a matter of finishing her opponent off for Serena.

Regardless of the circumstances, it crowned a magnificent 18-month span for Serena in which she won an incredible five Grand Slams.

However, this unparalleled success was soon overshadowed by deep sadness as her half-sister, Yetunde Price—who had also worked as both Venus' and Serena's personal assistant—was murdered two months later in a tragic drive-by shooting.

1. 2007 Australian Open: S. Williams vs. M. Sharapova, 6-1, 6-2

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Serena understandably collapses after a stunning career comeback.

After ending 2006 as No. 95 in the world, her lowest end to a year since 1997, Williams entered the Australian Open unseeded having won only one Grand Slam since the death of her half-sister. Indeed, fitness issues and depression had contributed to an overall decline in interest in the game.

However, heading into 2007, she declared herself determined to return to the top of the rankings, which Pat Cash branded "deluded" in an article for The Times at a time of widespread criticism for the American.

Despite finding herself two points from exiting the tournament at the quarterfinal stage, she managed to reach the final, where she stunned the 19-year-old No. 1 seed Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-2 in just 63 minutes.

This went some way to earning revenge for the 2004 Wimbledon final loss to the Russian prodigy, who in many ways had replaced her as the commercial powerhouse of the women's game.

And yet Sharapova has incredibly never beaten Williams since that debut Slam in 2004.

As reported by the New York Times, she spoke of her half-sister after the win, "Most of all I would like to dedicate this victory to my sister who is not here...Her name is Yetunde, and I just love her so much."

Not only was this the turning point of Williams' career, it was undoubtedly her finest Grand Slam final performance of all time, with Piers Newbery describing it for the BBC as "arguably the most powerful display ever seen in women's tennis."