Our man Simon Briggs is in Paris and observed the emergence of a new force in the women's game:

At Wimbledon last summer, Serena Williams celebrated the Serena slam: all four grand-slam titles in her possession. Since then, though, it has been more a case of the Serena slump, as the world No. 1 has fallen on the brink of history in another three majors

Yesterday her conqueror was Garbine Muguruza, the 22-year-old Spaniard who could one day inherit Williams’s mantle. But the sequence began with a more surprising loss to Roberta Vinci in the US Open semi-final, and continued with defeat at the hands of Angelique Kerber in the trophy match in Melbourne. Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22 grand slam titles remains tantalisingly out of reach.