Run and Gun

“I do all the things she likes,” a frustrated Simona Halep told her coach, Darren Cahill, when he visited her in the second set of her 6-4, 6-4 loss to Maria Sharapova in Singapore on Tuesday.

What exactly those things were, it was hard to say, but it was also hard to argue with Halep’s assessment. At that point, Sharapova was up a set and 3-0 in the second, and she would soon be up 5-1. Halep had done everything that you’re supposed to do against Sharapova: She had moved the 6-foot Russian side-to-side, taken her out of the center of the court, swung her wide with her serve, and changed direction with the ball whenever she had the chance.

The latter is a specialty of Simona’s, and it’s something that, in theory, should work well against Sharapova. But as the Romanian said, it doesn’t work for her. Sharapova, who is now 6-0 against Halep, ended up winning the lion’s share of the long points today. Halep changed the direction of the ball, and Sharapova changed it right back. Maria can struggle against Mini-Me opponents, those who hit with the same flat pace she does, and who keep the ball low. Obviously there’s something about the trajectory of Halep’s strokes, and the topspin she uses on them, that feeds into Sharapova’s strengths.

“I think I’m quite pleased to be able to beat the No. 2 player in the world,” Sharapova said. Coming into this week, she hadn’t played a full match since Wimbledon.

“I think it was, again, a very physical match." Each of Sharapova's last three wins over Halep had gone the distance. "I found myself on the defense many times, but was able to win a lot of the long points.”

View image | gettyimages.com

Sharapova wasn’t perfect; she double-faulted seven times, made 34 unforced errors against just 22 winners, and failed to convert six of 11 break points. But playing a clean game is less important to her than playing a forceful game, one that keeps her in control and her opponent on her heels and reacting. As Sharapova has said, for her, unforced errors are an overrated statistic, and one she doesn’t dwell on. As long as she feels like she’s playing her game, and hitting the shots she wants to hit, she doesn’t mind if some of them don’t go in. According to Halep, Sharapova succeeded.

“I knew that I stay too far back, too far away to the court,” Halep said, “so I tried just to come more close to the baseline to be more aggressive. But she played well. She didn’t let me make my game, I can say.”

Halep then zeroed in on the match’s crucial moment.

“I did a few mistakes,” she said. “I hit two double faults at 5-4, so was very close.”

Before that 4-5 game, Cahill told Halep that she was serving well, so she should keep going after it. Did she listen a little too well, and go for a little too much? Either way, her ground strokes were the bigger issue. Cahill urged her to swing more freely and hit them with more conviction, but Halep only began to do that when she was 1-5 down in the second set. From 1-5 to 4-5, she broke free of Sharapova’s baseline grip and played the kind of athletic all-court tennis that she had hoped to play from the start. As Tennis Channel commentator Lindsay Davenport pointed out, Halep finally “cut off the angle” on a forehand at 3-5 in the second. Meaning, she finally moved forward to meet the ball, rather than scrambling behind the baseline to retrieve it. The result was a rare winner.

View image | gettyimages.com

Could those three games serve as a template for Halep when she faces Sharapova in the future, or if they meet again in the Singapore final? She should hope so.

“I don’t have to find excuses,” Halep said. “Just think about this match, to take the positives, and just to work on them and to be better next time when I play against her.”

On this day, Halep’s rally fell short. It was the second time in as many matches that Sharapova has struggled to close out a one-sided final set. Like Serena Williams on a few occasions this season, Sharapova seemed to be seized by nerves at the finish line. But also like Serena, she found a way to calm down and force herself past those nerves. Afterward, Maria chalked it up to a lack of match play.

“Those moments,” she said, “you have to get there when you haven’t played in a long time.”

There’s no way to practice for nerves, other than to feel them again. Sharapova has felt them twice in Singapore, and fought through them twice. She’s reminded us, in case we had forgotten after all of these months, of what makes her a champion. She's back, as Halep might say, doing what she likes.