On a gusty, glowing day in Paris, Serena Williams defeated both her nemesis and her personal patsy for a 16th Grand Slam title on Saturday.
The patsy was Maria Sharapova, who usually can’t keep her groundstrokes in the court, or her second serves in the box, against the hard-swatting Williams. The nemesis was the slow, red clay of Roland Garros, which had thwarted Serena’s otherwise overwhelming game since her only championship there in 2002. Eleven years later to the day, at age 31, Williams was hungrier and happier than ever. She delivered her well-practiced, post-match speech in French, delighting the crowd. She thanked everybody, from Jehovah to her family to the audience.
“Eleven years ago, I didn’t think I’d still be playing, never past 28, but heck I’m still here,” Williams told Mary Carillo on NBC. “This is the only one I haven’t won more than one. I’m really, really, really pumped.”
Compared to some of the recent one-sided matches between these two players, the 6-4, 6-4 victory by Williams in the one-hour, 46-minute final was an extraordinary, equitable show of power tennis. Sharapova, the 2012 champ and the owner of a career Grand Slam, was no slouch. She is most mobile on this surface and played about as well as she can with her high-risk game.
THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images
Former French Open champ Aranxta Sanchez hands Serena Williams the French Open trophy.
The Russian baseliner came out swinging, knocking 99 mph second serves and aiming successfully for the lines. Sharapova, whose mental game is never in question, fought off four break points in the very first game and broke Williams’ serve twice in the opening set.
Eventually, however, Williams’s crosscourt forehand in the ninth game provided her own, third break, and she held serve for the set. Sharapova somehow saved five break points in the first game of the second set, but sprayed a backhand wide in the third game and was broken, sealing the outcome. Serena lost only three points on her serve in the entire second set. She finished with 10 aces and no double faults, drilling a final ace about a foot from the T for the match.
Williams has now defeated Sharapova 13 successive times since 2004, dropping only one set in their last nine meetings.
To be fair, Sharapova isn’t Williams’ only victim these days. Serena is on a 31-match winning streak, the longest of her career, and has dropped just three matches in the last year. At this tournament, only Svetlana Kuznetsova took a set off her. Only Kuznetsova and Sharapova broke her serve.
PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images
Maria Sharapova is now on the losing end of 13-straight matches against Serena Williams.
Ever since she was knocked out of the 2012 French Open in the first round by Virginie Razzano, Williams had made this particular tournament a personal crusade.
She moved part-time into a Paris apartment and trained regularly with her coach and reported beau, Patrick Mouratoglou. Serena then entered and captured clay tournaments in Madrid and Rome leading into the French Open.
For Sharapova, the loss was far from a disgrace. She had been humbled far worse by Williams in the final at the London Olympics, 6-0, 6-1, when it appeared she didn’t belong on the same court.
“I gave it all I had today. I had to. It wasn’t enough,” Sharapova told Carillo. “She’s been playing incredibly well the last two months. I’m in the French Open final, I did something to get there, and I love it too much just to give it to my opponent. They’re going to have to win it.”
Williams is the current title- holder in three of the four Grand Slam events and is just two major titles behind both Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, at 18. Both those Hall of Famers had complained in the past that Serena was not fully committed to the tour.
Considering that Williams is now playing better than any other woman in the history of the sport, that no longer is an issue.
