The Sunday Mail
What was most remarkable about Serena Williams’s 17th career win over Maria Sharapova, delivering her a 19th major to draw within three of Steff Graf’s Open era record of 22, was that she could not lose, whatever the result.
So publicly had she suffered throughout the 2015 Australian Open with a hacking cough that could be heard even over the screaching of the game’s loudest interjectionists, it was impossible for Sharapova to win.
Open triumph
As it happened, their 19th encounter went the way of nearly all the others, Williams winning 6-3, 7-6, despite the Russian’s best fighting instincts. In grand slam finals, Williams, the oldest champion here in the Open era, is 19-4, the best percentage performance in either the men’s or women’s game.
She is a phenomenon.
“I love you back,” she shouted to a fan in the audience before accepting the trophy on court. “In the end I was able to come through. I also have to congratulate Maria who really pushed me tonight. She gave us a great final.
“Growing up I wasn’t the richest, but I had a rich family in spirit. Standing here with 19 championships is something I never thought would happen. I went on a court just with a ball and a racket and with a hope.”
Thirty years after she won her third Australian Open, Martina Navratilova was on hand to witness Williams’s untrammelled progress towards further glory.
“I think she can reach Steffi Graf at 22,” said Chris Evert, whose mark of 18 majors she shares with Navratilova and which Williams passed when she won her only slam of 2014, at Flushing Meadows.
“She’s healthy and driven. She could do that easily. I think the French might be a goal for her. She got a taste of what the future is like playing Madison Keys, who matched her power (in the semifinals).”
Sharapova’s iciness might leave people cold, but there could be no withholding admiration for the heat of her commitment. She tried everything, more drop shots, probably, than in the whole fortnight, and stretching her nemesis wider and wider.
To no avail. Again.
She is condemned to suffer in this fixture for as long as she plays tennis. This was another classic collision of the game’s best all-time server and the most stubborn antagonist of them all.
And only twice has Sharapova prevailed.
It is a decade since she beat Williams to win Wimbledon aged 17, but it is likely she will never beat her again.
Coming into this final, in 10 years, over 18 matches and 40 sets, Williams not only led Sharapova 16-2 in victories, but had won 225 games to 149.
Thirteen times Sharapova registered single figures in games; only once – in that 2004 Wimbledon final – did she inflict that humiliation on Williams.
Despite another no-surrender performance, Sharapova found herself serving to stay in the match after an hour and 26 minutes.
All of a sudden the highest ball-toss in the game seemed like a liability in her nervous hand, rather than a key part of the weaponry she has honed over the years.
Still, after shoving a forehand wide to hand Williams match point, she found the composure and courage to save with a crushing winner into the deuce corner, then held.
The pressure briefly switched to the other end, where Williams hit her third double fault and 15th and 16th aces for 6-5.
A rare hold to love by Sharapova forced the tie-break, and Williams got the big guns out, acing for a 3-1 lead.
She reduced all the history of their mutual animosity into one hard star across the net after a brutal forehand took her to 4-1, but she looked tight with history only a couple of sound placements away, and three errors allowed Sharapova to get back to 4-5 on her serve.
Sharapova found another desperate winner behind her second serve, and Williams was stunned when what she thought was a championship winning ace was called a let. So she did it again, same spot, different call, right result.
They went through the ritual handshake at the net, the winner’s smile no more convincing than the loser’s slight easing of pursed lips. They will never like each other, forever craving what the other player has.
“I gotta congratulate Serena in making history, playing some of her best tennis,” Sharapova said. “It is really an honour playing her. I gotta say it’s been a long couple of weeks here for me. I was almost down and out in the second round, but I gave it my best effort.”
That, at least, was true. — Guardian.
