They don’t do snazzy formations, they just win grand slam titles. A few hours after equalling Steffi Graf’s open-era record of 22 grand slam singles crowns, Serena Williams joined her sister Venus to win their sixth Wimbledon title together and their 14th in all. Sixteen years after their first triumph together, the sisters beat Timea Babos of Hungary and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-4 to do it all over again.

Four years after their last Wimbledon title together, Serena and Venus are now 14-0 in grand slam finals. It is the fourth time Serena has won both titles in the same year, while Venus had done the double twice herself. And to think, they only really played together this year to get themselves in shape for the Olympic Games, where next month in Rio they will try to win the gold medal for the fourth time.

“It was really special,” Serena said. “It was really awesome to be out there, to be playing next to Venus, to win Wimbledon again. We’ve won, I don’t know how many now, but we love it. We love playing doubles and being together out there.”

In the early part of their careers, Serena and Venus were a familiar fixture in the doubles at the grand slams and their sheer power was usually enough to see off most pairs who played a more traditional form of doubles. For the Williams sisters there are no behind‑the-back signals, they simply hammer the ball with too much power for their opponents to cope with.

However, when Venus was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome in 2011 their appearances became fewer and further between. With Venus’s health having improved in the past 12 months, they have been able to reunite and the lure of the Olympics helped them get back into action. On Saturday, the Americans held off a determined challenge from Babos and Shvedova.

The pair had beaten the No1 seeds, Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza, on their way to the final, and they more than played their part in an entertaining match, giving the Williams sisters an early scare when they broke Venus to lead 3-2. That sparked the Americans into action and they broke the Babos serve to get back on level terms, held Serena’s serve and then broke Shvedova before Venus served out for the set.

The first six games in the second set went with serve as Babos and Shvedova held firm, but Serena and Venus moved up a gear as they broke the Shvedova serve to lead 4-3 and then Serena held to lead 5-3.

Babos held serve to stay in touch but Venus, with a bit of help from Serena with a fine backhand volley, served out for victory.

“Watching Serena earlier was so amazing and I was so into that,” Venus said. “Then you’ve got to reset yourself and say, ‘OK, we’ve got to play a match and try to win’. She brought the energy from game one and that brought me up, too.”