The first set is crucial: Sharapova is 40-1 when winning the opener at Roland Garros. Though the 2012 champion is 18-1 on clay this season, including a win over Halep in last month's Madrid final, the 2008 French Open junior champion has the weapons to pull the upset. Halep must hold her nerve, take the ball on the rise, stretch Sharapova on the forehand, and hit her kill shot—the backhand down the line—with precision. Sharapova has fought back from a set down in three straight matches, but Halep is a sniper and the better mover. If she stays calm and works the angles, she can win.
Halep heads into her first Grand Slam final having not lost a set, but I wonder if dropping one along the way would have helped her, should she run into resistance on Saturday. She can expect to with Sharapova on the other side of the net. The career Grand-Slammer has hardly been dominant, though: Since a 6-0, 6-0 third-round win, Sharapova needed three sets to win each of her next three matches. But coming out on top each time is arguably as impressive as Halep’s near-flawless run through the draw. In a match that should be filled with high-quality shotmaking and more than a few bouts of nerves, look for experience to prevail.
Halep is an X-factor at this tournament, and sometimes that can be an enormous asset that unnerves a heavy favorite and yields upset gold on red clay (see “Majoli, Iva,” or “Gomez, Andres”). This doesn’t appear to be one of those times. While Halep is a deserving finalist, she’s bumping up against the player who’s probably least likely to be lulled into complacency, or find herself teetering under the weight of expectations. Sharapova has already played a pressure match against a dangerous newcomer (Eugenie Bouchard), and she’s triumphed in three successive three-set matches going into the final.
Maximum effort vs. maximum effortlessness. Sharapova, who has come back from a set down in each of her last three matches, has been a better fighter than she has been a player in Paris; Halep, who has yet to drop a set, has made it all look easy. Both of those things were also true the last time these two played, in the Madrid final last month. Halep cruised through a 6-1 opening set, but Sharapova fought her way back to win. Maria is 3-0 in their head-to-head, while Simona is playing her first major final. The odds favor a Sharapova win, but I’ll take the woman who has been the better player at the French so far.
The Pick: Halep