Respectful, if a little cool, the obedient Centre Court crowd rose to applaud Venus Williams for the second successive year after she beat 19-year-old Justine Henin 6-1, 3-6, 6-0 to become Wimbledon champion.

Such was her authority and momentum in the third set when the towering American visibly rushed her last service game and broke Henin for 6-0, it was to finish the match before the threatening drizzle turned into anything more serious.

Hurrying the match along in a major final ? Only a player as physically dominant as Williams could have done it. And that's nobody else.

Nor was there a need to sift through the statistics to see where Williams, the first player to retain the championship title since Steffi Graf five years ago, won the match. A first serve that belongs on the men's tour, shuddering ground strokes and a willingness to charge the net when required, allowed the 21-year-old to grip even firmer a title that few believed Henin could snatch.

Now the questions surround the possible Williams domination of this event in the way Sampras was able to do seven times in the men's championship.

Williams is slowly refining her grass game without compromising on power. More comfortable at the net hitting volleys and content to follow the impossible serve, the belief is she can only get stronger.

In that respect the anti-climax, the credible lack of a threat of an upset made the final predictably processional.

And the crowd reaction? Grace under pressure, understated excellence, majestic rather than bombastic preminence. That's what Centre Court laps up. Tim Henman's suburban sensibilities are one thing, Williams is of a different ilk.

"You know I've had a lot of experiences like that with the crowd. It doesn't seem that often that I'm the player the crowd wants to win," she said. "Who knows maybe there will be a day they'll root for me.

"But for me it's not an issue. I don't function this way where I have to have approval."

Not unlike Althea Gibson, the last black American player to win the championship in 1958 when she beat Angela Mortimer, Williams' strength, athleticism and reach were at times over-powering.

In her own words Gibson once described her tennis as 'aggressive, dynamic and mean.' Williams is Gibson with the volume turned up and yesterday even Henin's own alluring, bite-sized brand of dynamism couldn't handle it.

"I can't say I'm trying to emulate her," said Williams to the Gibson comparison. "Really I was just trying to make my own success." The signs in the first set were immediately worrying for Henin's Belgian supporters as the American thundered through it 6-1 in 20 minutes with two service breaks.

The 19-year-old clearly struggled with the pace of Williams and even when she put a racquet to the ball, there was little evidence her ground strokes were going to cut it as they had done against Jennifer Capriati in the semi-final.

"Her serve was unbelievable all match," said Henin. "I broke her only once. It was difficult, it was so fast, a lot of precision. I think she put in a lot of first serves. That was tough because on my serve I was obliged to serve very well. So I had a lot of pressure on my serve, especially in the third set."

The rain arrived in the fifth game of set two and when Williams emerged, she appeared oddly nervous. Henin took advantage and broke for 5-3, her only break of the match, before serving for the set.

Williams responded by breaking Henin in her next service game and from there on it was 'aggressive, dynamic and mean,' blur of braided hair and shrieks, another swift 20-minute set, her service never threatened.

Less demonstrative than last year's gazelle leaps across the court and up to her family, in victory the world number two was no less impressive. She knew she had the title long before Henin's final backhand looped well out of bounds.

"I think it was the fact I was up five love and last year, you know, I won in a tough tiebreaker so it was two different circumstances," said Williams by way of explanation.

From here it is into the US Open at the end of August with the question of who is the best player in the world likely to haunt Martina Hingis, who has not won a Major since 1999. Williams, ranked two in the world, has won three of the last five.

"In my mind, I'm always the best," she said. "I can't see anybody better than me. In my mind, sure I'm the best."

Few would disagree.