As Anastasija Sevastova moves on, Maria Sharapova walks away content

NEW YORK—“What is it about these championships that brings out the best in your game?” Anastasija Sevastova was asked as she walked into Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday.

It was a fair question. Last year at the US Open, the 27-year-old Latvian upset Garbiñe Muguruza on her way to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. Now, 12 months later, she had a chance to repeat that breakthrough success at the same event.

While Sevastova loves New York, and she has been known to sport a Yankees cap—because she thinks the logo is cool, not because she knows much about the team—she was at a loss to explain why she thrives in the Big Apple.

“I have no idea,” said the always-blunt Sevastova, who grew up in the small seaside town of Liepaja, with one tennis club, and who describes herself as a “D-minus celebrity” in her home country.

In truth, Sevastova isn’t all that bad at tennis when she’s not in New York; she’s ranked 17th in the world. For two hours and 17 minutes on Sunday, she showed us what makes her such a difficult opponent to play, here and elsewhere.

Sevastova began her fourth-round match with Maria Sharapova by parking herself well behind the baseline, in territory normally only ventured into by Rafael Nadal. Sevastova is a counter-puncher who typically stakes out a defensive position, but I thought she was taking the idea too far against Sharapova. Did she really want to give one of the sport’s most devastating offensive forces such a head start in every rally? Did she want to offer so little resistance?

For the first five games, my concerns seemed justified. Sharapova was in control. She stood on top of the baseline, and made contact well inside it. At the same time, Sevastova struggled to catch up to her sharp crosscourt angles. The Russian quickly led 4-1.

But Sevastova’s plan soon began to bear fruit. The more balls Sharapova hit, the more balls she hit out. Forehands, backhands, even swing volleys, her specialty—they all began to misfire. Whether or not Sevastova thought of it beforehand, the rope-a-dope strategy made sense against a player who has had so little match play, or even practice, over the last few months. According to Sevastova, the important thing wasn’t just to defend, but to defend with variety.

“I knew I couldn’t hit her off the court, that’s for sure,” said Sevastova, who learned to handle pace on the wooden indoor courts she practiced on as a kid in Leipaja. “So I had to have a game plan. I had to play a lot of slice, mixing it up, forehand running, so that she moves to her forehand.”

“When they’re hitting [big],” she said of sluggers like Sharapova, “they’re also making mistakes. So if you move well, if you mix it up, you have always a chance.”

Sharapova managed to keep the ball inside the lines just often enough to squeak through the first set, but in the second and third set the floodgates opened, and the errors poured out. By the end, it was as if there were a forcefield around the court designed to keep her shots out of it. Sharapova made 51 unforced errors, 36 of them from the forehand side, and double faulted five times. Even a bathroom break after the second set, two calls to the trainer in the third and a brief mini-meltdown from Sevastova—up 3-0, she double faulted twice and was broken—wasn’t enough to rescue Sharapova from a 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 defeat.

At the same time, the Ashe fans had a chance to see the crisp, effortless, highly controlled strokes that make Sevastova a favorite of the sport’s nerds and aficionados. She rallied, but she rallied with flair, and she used the whole court. She maneuvered Sharapova wide to her backhand, then flicked her forehand back into the open court for winners. She cupped under a forehand drop shot for extra backspin. On a backhand drop, she carved around the ball and made it carom sideways so sharply that Sharapova could only manage a feeble wave at it. And after her one stumble in the third, she closed out the match like an Ashe veteran.

“I wasn’t that nervous,” Sevastova said. “I knew if I serve well, I always have a chance.”

As her last backhand floated wide, Sharapova’s US Open comeback was over. She walked off the court with a slight smile on her face, and she was equally upbeat in her press conference.

“It’s been a really great ride in the last week,” Sharapova said. “Ultimately I can take a lot out of this week. It’s great I got that major out of the way...I’m thankful for the opportunity. I did my best. I can be proud of that.”

Sharapova is probably right: The best aspect of her return to the Open is that now it’s out of the way. By the time the next Slam rolls around in Australia, she’ll be ranked high enough to avoid any controversy about wild cards. As I wrote last week, no return from a drug suspension is ever going to rise to the level of the heartwarming. But there was no question, as the crowd in Ashe cheered her last stand in the third set today, that the fans in New York wanted to see more of Maria.

Instead, it’s Sevastova who moves on, into a draw where more opportunity awaits. Four years ago, she quit the game because of chronic physical problems—“It was depressing,” Sevastova said of being injured all the time. She tried her hand at learning the “leisure management” business, but, not too surprisingly, she found the tennis court more enticing than the office desk.

After today, Sevastova probably doesn’t have any regets about that decision. And she must be starting to get an idea of why she does so well in New York: she knows what she’s doing out there.

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