After a successful year on the doubles circuit in which she made three grand slam finals with Dellacqua, she has plenty of experience on the big stage, which will serve her well when she takes on the top players.
Every judge worth listening to makes Djokovic favourite to win the final, favourite to win Wimbledon and favourite to add the US Open to his Australian title for the first grand slam sweep in tennis since Rod Laver's second one in 1969.
Only Martina Navratilova, who presented Williams with the trophy, was older when winning a grand slam title (at Wimbledon in 1990) but it would take a brave person to believe that her third French Open win will be the last of her major victories.
Having struggled through her previous three rounds, all of which went to a deciding set, the world No1 ripped apart the fragile game of Italy's Sara Errani 6-1, 6-3 and stands two wins away from a 20th grand slam title.
The world No1, who has lost only twice all year, needs the title for a career grand slam, not to mention the second leg of a potential sweep of all four majors this year, a feat last celebrated when Rod Laver did it for the second time 46 years ago.
John McEnroe calls it "the changing of the guard" and says if Djokovic wins his ninth slam title on Sunday he has a chance to be considered "an all-time great" alongside Rafael Nadal, whom he demolished in straight sets on Wednesday, and Roger Federer, who lost in the quarters to Stan Wawrinka the same afternoon.
The caddies hired a law firm, who told them that through last year's landmark O'Bannon v NCAA sports image rights case, legal precedent had been set, making the case "a slam dunk".
The highest-ranking self-published author on the 5 August NYT chart is Colleen Hoover, whose ebook Slammed ("A girl falls in love with a neighbour who enjoys slam poetry, but they encounter obstacles") comes in in eighth place, ahead of ebooks by established bestsellers James Patterson and Karin Slaughter.
Wawrinka, seeded No8 here, as he was when he beat the then No1 Rafael Nadal for his first slam title, in Melbourne last year, moves to fourth in the rankings, while the Spaniard drops to 10th, the first time he has been in double digits since April 2005.
The popular Swiss won for only the fourth time in 21 matches against Djokovic to take his second grand slam title 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 in three hours and 12 minutes, and, at 30, became the oldest Roland Garros champion since Andrés Gómez 25 years ago.
By denying Djokovic victory, Wawrinka defied all predictions and stopped the Serb's grand slam ambitions in their tracks.
