For the past two years and three of the last four, Centre Court was Venus Williams’s personal summer cottage. Now, another member of the Williams household has claimed ownership of the most famous place in tennis.

Serena Williams had not won a ladies’ singles championship at the All-England Club since 2003, but this little sister now stands tall in suburban London once again after a Saturday smackdown of big sister Venus Williams. A tidy 7-6 (3), 6-2 win, attained in just 87 minutes, gives Serena her 11th Grand Slam crown, her third Wimbledon, and her third championship in the last four major tournaments. An already-decorated career just became that much more impressive, and there’s no better place to enhance a portfolio than at the most prestigious tournament on the planet.

This match might have paled in comparison to last year’s all-Williams final (won by Venus, 7-5, 6-4), but the high-stakes showdown provided yet one more glimpse at the source of Serena’s supremacy. Much as Elena Dementieva could not overcome her failure (not due to any great mistake, but a failure nonetheless) to claim a match point against Serena in Thursday’s spectacular semifinal, so it also was that Venus could not rebound from a blown opportunity against her little sister on the final Saturday of The Championships.

The biggest point of this match was not hard to identify, given the trajectory of the proceedings. Serena lost just eight points on serve, but three of those points came in the eighth game of the first set, with Serena serving at 3-4. Venus gained a 15-40 edge and, after losing one break point, gained the upper hand on the next. Serena, desperately trying to close the point at net on the ad side, was plainly out of position as Venus let loose a topspin forehand passing shot to a wide-open deuce court. Improbably, however, the ball sailed a few inches long. Venus bent over in frustration, knowing that on a day when service breaks would be hard to come by, she had just frittered away an easy chance to take a 5-3 lead and serve out the first set.

Serena Williams has made a career out of pouncing when opponents–even other family members–fail to put her away. Liberated by this escape–just as she flourished after dodging that one match point against Dementieva–Serena, at deuce, convincingly won the next two service points to hold for 4-all. After that portion of the proceedings, the second-seeded little sister conceded practically nothing to her third-seeded sibling. Serena would get into–and dominate–a first-set tiebreak with an overwhelming serve and a spot-on forehand that left Venus shaken and uncertain with her movement and footwork. In a very anticlimactic second set, Serena lost only two points–yes, two!–on her serve, coasting through a majority of games and then breaking for a 4-2 lead when Venus, sensing her impending demise, double-faulted. The rest was history–Wimbledon history–as Serena rolled to the finish line and, for the third time, claimed a piece of fine china named after her sister: The Venus Rosewater Dish.

Venus Williams has nothing to hang her head about: Five wins at the Big W puts the elder Williams sister in very lofty company, behind a few ladies named (Martina) Navratilova, (Helen Wills) Moody, (Steffi) Graf, (Suzanne) Lenglen, and (Billie Jean) King. Moreover, the 29-year-old’s only losses in Wimbledon finals have come against her sister, meaning that eight of the past 10 ladies’ singles champions at this hallowed event are linked to the Williams family name. Serena felt the bitter taste of defeat after  last year’s loss to Venus. After a flipping of the script in 2009, big sis can’t feel as though her Wimbledon career has been anything less than fully satisfying.

In the end, perhaps the notions of a new owner at Centre Court are overblown. Instead of saying that Serena has purchased a summer cottage from Venus, it might be better to say that the Williamses are having one big celebration in their comfortable English residence. There might be a different champion at the All-England Club this time around, but the household in control of these luscious lawns remains very much the same. Serena Williams will merely be able to enjoy her summer a little more than her sister will.