Serena Williams and Madison Keys

Serena Williams  has won her 70th career  singles title, beating fellow American, Madison Keys in Rome, 7-6(5), 6-3.

The match at the Internazional BNL d’Italia was the first all-American final since 2012 and the first on red clay since 2002.

The victory  meant much for Serena as it also ended her nine-month title drought.

(watch the highlights here:

“I feel like it was important for me to just go out there like usual,” she said in her post-match press conference. “It’s a totally new match, it’s a different week, you know, and hopefully just win one. If not, hope for next time, next week.”

Playing in her third final of 2016, Williams had spent the season in search of her first title since theWestern & Southern Open last summer, and was the heavy favorite to break that duck against Keys, who was playing the biggest final of her career on what had hitherto been her least favorite surface.

“I think no matter how many times you play Serena, you always go in and you can just feel her presence,” Keys said after the match. “That’s always an extra thing that you have to be worried about during the match.

“But for me today it really wasn’t so much about how big the tournament was or anything like that. It was really just wanting to go out and do my best and give my best performance.”

Serena has now become the fifth woman to win  70 career titles  afterMartina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, and Margaret Court. In all, she hit four fewer winners than Keys (13 to 17), but also eight fewer errors (24 to 32), and converted all but one of her six break point chances to seal the match in just under 90 minutes.

*originally reported by wtatour.com