Wimbledon: Serena Williams meets Garbine Muguruza in the women's final

The ‘Serena Slam’ is just one victory away for one of sport's all-time great athletes yet she must exorcise the memory of a shock defeat to achieve it.

Should she win Saturday’s Wimbledon final, Serena Williams, a giant of ladies’ sport extending beyond tennis, will hold all four Grand Slams at the same time for the second time in a career that could yet usurp the sport’s most trophy-laden players.

Stood opposite Williams on Centre Court, the scene of five previous Wimbledon wins with the latest coming three years ago, will be Garbine Muguruza.

The odds will be stacked against her but a nearly-forgotten victory over Williams at last year’s French Open will suddenly spring back into both women’s consciousness.

The 21-year-old insists that 6-2 6-2 win last May will haunt her more accomplished foe when they meet again in London.

“She knows that I can win against her, that I'm not afraid,” Muguruza said. “I don't think she's really used to this.

She knows that I can win against her, that I'm not afraid. I don't think she's really used to this.

“It's really important because it makes you see and realise that she's also a person. She also has feelings. She also gets nervous.”

Yet could nerves get the better of Muguruza? She wouldn’t be the first youngster to fold in her maiden Grand Slam final.

The Venezuelan-born Spanish player has impressed in the past fortnight, most recently when dispatching Agnieszka Radwanska in the last eight, another far more experienced opponent.

Despite her relative youth, she has displayed the kind of power and strength more frequently associated with her Wimbledon final opponent, but keeping that consistent as the spotlight brightens has proved problematic for her contemporaries.

Sabine Lisicki, 23 at the time, lit up Wimbledon two years ago but was reduced to tears in a one-sided final defeat to Marion Bartoli.

Similarly, a 20-year-old Eugenie Bouchard found herself apologising to the Royal Family after a below-par final loss to Petra Kvitova last year. The warning signs are there for Muguruza, who was just nine months old in 1994 when Conchita Martinez became the most recent Spanish woman to win Wimbledon.

“It's what I've worked for,” she said. “It's the best. Now I'm feeling that all my effort, all the work that I did before, it's paying off.

"I'm going to enjoy tomorrow. It's going to be the best day of my tennis career. If I win it's going to be much better."

She's given me problems in the past. I don't think she's intimidated at all.

Williams enters the contest riding a stunning 38-1 record this year and is setting new records at a seemingly breakneck speed yet, she remarkably insists the history books don’t interest her.

Chasing the third of four steps in a calendar Grand Slam in her eighth All England Club final, the 33-year-old from the United States believes she can rest easy if the winner’s medal eludes her.

“I don't want the pressure of that,” Williams said. “It's been okay just to free my brain.

"I've won so many Grand Slam titles. I'm at a position where I don't need to win another Wimbledon. I could lose on Saturday. Sure, I won't be happy. But I don't need another Wimbledon title.

"Getting to 18 majors was super stressful for me. I was so desperate to do it. After that, I've just been really enjoying myself.”

But Williams remembers last year’s humbling at Roland Garros to Muguruza and recognises that her younger opponent could be buoyed by that memory.

Accepting she may not possess a pre-match psychological advantage, Williams could need the type of vintage display that her career has been built on. After all, not every tennis great has a Slam named after them.

She said: “It's definitely not an easy match-up. She actually has a win against me.

“She's given me problems in the past. I don't think she's intimidated at all.”