On Sunday, women’s tennis luminary Serena Williams put the finishing touches on arguably her most dominant season, at the ripe old age of 32.
Despite admitting extreme fatigue after her semifinal win at the year-end championships over Jelena Jankovic — punctuated by a crying outburst just five games into the match — Williams started slow but eventually pulled away from Li Na, taking the championship match, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0.
Yes, there was 2002, when she won three Grand Slams, with all of her conquests coming at the expense of her older sister Venus. But Serena played only 61 matches that season and lost in the year-end championships to Kim Clijsters.
In 2013, Williams played 82 matches, the most in her career — far surpassing her previous high of 62, from 2009 and 2012.
Here’s a look back at the Williams’ season, in numbers:
$12,385,572: The amount of prize money Williams earned, the third-most in history. The only other tennis player to earn more in a single year is Novak Djokovic, who earned $12,803,737 in 2012 and $12,619,803 in 2011.
78-4: Williams’ record, an astounding 95.1 percent success rate. To go back even further, she is 109-5 since her stunning loss in the first round of the 2012 French Open to Virginie Razzano.
11: The number of titles Williams won. She captured the French Open and U.S. Open, as well as the year-end championships. She also won in Brisbane, Miami, Charleston, Madrid, Rome, Bastad, Toronto, and Beijing.
34: The number of consecutive matches won by Williams during one stretch, her career-best winning streak. The streak began in Miami, spanned the entire European clay-court season and came to an end when she lost to eventual finalist Sabine Lisicki at Wimbledon. Williams lost only five sets during that time — as many titles as she collected. For good measure, Williams also tossed in winning streaks of 18 and 14 matches this season. The 18-match winning streak, which began following her loss in the Cincinnati final to Victoria Azarenka, is still ongoing.
23: In tennis, there’s nothing more crushing than being on the receiving end of a bagel set (losing by a 6-0 score). Williams doled out 23 bagels this season, with two of the most authoritative coming in the final sets of the championship matches — in Miami, where she shut out Maria Sharapova, and in Charleston, where she blanked longtime nemesis Jankovic.
35 percent: On the topic of bread-based products, Williams recorded 33 breadsticks (sets won by a 6-1 score). Combine that with the 23 bagels and she won 56 sets by either a 6-0 or 6-1 score. Out of 160 total sets won (she won one set in each of her four losses), 35 percent were either bagels or breadsticks.