WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND—Maria Sharapova walked onto Centre Court on Tuesday the way she walks onto every court, with an icy, tight-lipped stride of determination. She towered over her opponent, Angelique Kerber, a woman she had beaten in four of their previous five meetings. The expectation was that Sharapova, the French Open champion and the favorite to win this title after Serena Williams’ defeat, would make it five of six. Maria had won so many close comeback matches in Paris, she had come to seem bullet-proof.
But as any tennis champion will tell you, every day is a new one—some days that’s a good thing, other days it’s not. To start the match, Sharapova turned her back to her opponent, spun around, strode purposefully to the baseline—and sailed her first serve six feet long. There was something about the shot that didn’t look, sound, or feel right. And that went double for her next shot, a backhand that she pulled wide. By the time Sharapova had double-faulted at break point, the Centre Court crowd was in full, murmurous buzz.
They were also in full, surprised roar over what was happening on the other side of the net. As poorly as Sharapova started, that’s just how sharp Kerber was. The German is famous for her retrieving ability, and she was her usual stubborn self, flying from sideline to sideline to chase down Sharapova’s drives, and sending them back any way she could—sliced, hacked, stabbed at, sidespinned, whatever it took. But Kerber was also very good in two areas where she typically struggles: Staying calm in tight moments and mounting an attack of her own.
Down 0-2 in the first-set tiebreaker, she won seven of the next nine points for the set. And she surprised Sharapova time and again from the baseline by poking forehands past her down the line. Most of the match was on Maria’s racquet, but Kerber’s did its part as well. She finished with 27 winners and 11 errors, and her sneaky, counterpunched placements forced Sharapova to keep aiming for the lines. Anything safe and Angie was on it.
“She’s a great anticipator of the ball,” Sharapova said of Kerber afterward. “She’s one of the best. That’s why she’s been in the top the last few years. I don’t think she has a huge weapon, but the fact that she makes you play such a physical match, gets so many balls back, and not just back, but deep and hard and flat, yeah, it says something.”