Serena Williams outplayed sister Venus to win her third Wimbledon title - then expressed bemusement that winning a third grand slam title in 10 months will not be enough to take her to number one in the world.

Dinara Safina, who has lost in each of her three grand slam finals and was beaten 6-1 6-0 by Venus in the semi-finals on Thursday, will stay at the top.

Serena said: "I think if you hold three grand slam titles, maybe you should be number one, but not on the WTA Tour obviously. My motivation is maybe just to win another grand slam and stay number two, I guess."

She added: "It is what it is. I'd definitely rather be number two and hold three grand slams in the past year than be number one and not have any.

"I see myself as number two. That's where I am. I think Dinara did a great job to get to number one. She won Rome and Madrid.

"I don't know what can be changed. I feel like I've had a pretty consistent year. I don't know what to do to be number one. I don't even care anymore."

Venus was the hot favourite going into the match, being the two-time defending champion and having dropped only 20 games on her march to the final.

But Serena played a brilliant tie-break to end Venus' streak of consecutive sets won at Wimbledon at 34 - stretching back to the third round in 2007 - and then dominated the second set to triumph in an hour and 27 minutes.

"This is one of the few times I didn't expect to come out with the win," continued Serena. "I felt like I had nothing to lose.

"I just wanted to move the ball around better than I did in my past few matches. When I won that first set, I was like, 'Wow, this is great'."