Serena Williams encouraged by her Wimbledon performance despite defeat | sport

Serena Williams described the two-hour-delay of the Wimbledon Women's Final as a "necessary evil", but insisted that she had no impact on her surprise defeat against Angelique. Kerber

. , the delay caused by the men's semifinal between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal continuing in depth in the fifth set, having resumed at 13h

But when asked whether the late start was disrespectful to the women's game, Williams shook his head. "It absolutely has not had an impact on me," said the American. "It was a necessary evil."

"I do not think they can put the men's semifinal behind the women because they have to come back the next day, they did not finish their match, they had to finish."

Williams was far from the best in her 3-6, 3-6 loss, but said she was encouraged by her performances at Wimbledon, which was her fourth tournament after the birth of his daughter Alexis Olympia in September

"These two weeks were so mental for me," she said. "I won matches. I was mentally fighting for every game. I did my best every game that I played. I have the impression of taking the steps in the right direction. I've made a giant step at Wimbledon.

"It's literally just the beginning." My journey has just begun, but I think these two weeks have really shown me that I could compete and I could become a contender to win the big ones. shelems. "

Williams vowed to return even stronger to the US Open next month, telling reporters:" I'm already describing what I need to improve, what I need to do, what that I did wrong, why I did it badly, how can I do better – all this madness going on my mind. So I say, OK, I am improving with losses. We'll see how it goes. "

When the American was asked what she would tell her daughter about when she was playing tennis in front of the Duchesses of Cambridge and Susbad, and made it a happy story, she smiled. "Well, I think it was a happy story," Williams said. "But I'll probably change the end."

Meanwhile, Kerber, who lost to Williams he two years ago, said she was delighted to get her first Wimbledon title. "It's just a dream come true," said the German. "I knew that I had to play my best tennis against a champion like Serena. "