You never have to worry about where Serena Williams’s focus is going to be when she plays Maria Sharapova. It will be on the ball. More specifically, it will be on hitting the ball past her opponent as early and often as possible. Maria won their early battle in the 2004 Wimbledon final, but Serena has used that loss as inspiration to wage a long and very successful war against the Russian. After breezing past her again 6-1, 6-3 today in Madrid, Williams has now won their last seven matches.
Williams was sharp from the start, and appeared to be determined not just to win every rally, but to win them in under three shots. Her serve was clicking—do I really need to tell you that? She finished with 11 aces. Her return was just as good. She broke Sharapova at 1-2 in the first after hammering a return winner that the TennisTV commentator described as a “Mike Tyson forehand,” and she took many of Sharapova’s serves from inside the baseline. It wasn’t surprising that Maria’s serve broke down under the pressure. She finished with eight double faults, including three when she was broken at 2-2 in the second set. Sharapova’s attempts to serve into Williams’s forehand? They didn’t work.
Serena’s ground-stroke stats were just as impressive: 28 winners to 10 errors. When she wasn’t hitting winners, she was pressing Sharapova and forcing her to rush. After the dismal, 27-minute first set, Sharapova’s coach, Thomas Hogstedt, told her to “go in,” to attack, but there weren’t many opportunities for that. Maria's one moment of hope came at 1-2 in the second set, when she cracked a few of her own return winners and briefly threatened to turn the rout into a match. But she stopped herself cold with her double faults in the next game. The final nail in the coffin came with Serena serving up 4-3 but facing a break point. She missed her first serve and appeared to be wobbling for the first time all day. She must have remembered who she was playing, because she went after the ball, snapped off a second serve ace, and celebrated with a fist-pump and a leg kick. Six points later, it was over.
Sharapova plays a similar hard-hitting game to Serena, just not as well or as hard-hitting. Williams seems to read everything Sharapova does, especially her serve, while Maria was caught going the wrong way by Serena a number of times today. The psychological dynamic only makes it worse for Maria. Normally, she’s the fierce one, the aggressor, and she forces the other player to react to her. That’s reversed against Serena. Today Maria hung her head early, and had a look of vague, questioning demoralization on her face all day—a star dimmed. Even her small surge in the second set had a half-hearted feel to it.
Why would Maria be any other way? She knows Serena's best is too good, and she knows she saves it just for her.
