Maria Sharapova had not beaten Victoria Azarenka in over three years when the two have played on hardcourts. Here, see for yourself. Sharapova knew she had to come up with something special today, and she sure did.
We know that there isn’t much subtlety to Sharapova’s game. Today was no different: she focused on doing everything she always does (attack, attack and attack some more), and every weapon in her arsenal looked good in doing so. She served well, she hit her FH well (particularly inside-out), but most striking of all was her movement. Particularly her movement towards the net.
For years, watching Sharapova chase down drop shots has been a staple of tennis unintentional comedy. Today, it was a source of amazement: not only did she get to numerous Azarenka drop shots, but her touch once she got there was superb. Ironically, one of the very few chase-downs she missed almost got her in real trouble, but thanks to her mistake, we got the one competitive patch of play during this Beatdown Saturday.
Up 6-4 and 4-1, Sharapova was firmly in control. She had the double break advantage, and everything in her game was clicking. Here are my (heavily edited) notes:
– DefensePova: she hits a crazy cross-court backhand pass while fully outstretched. Who is this person? 15-0.
– Great Azarenka inside-out return winner, 30-all.
– Sharapova puts away a short return from Azarenka, 40-30.
No problem, right? Everything was going well. Until…
– Sharapova has a supremely easy shot close to net, gets there in plenty of time, and somehow fails to get it over the net. The court was wide open. Azarenka was moving the other way. Deuce.
Little did we know, that was deuce number one. Of nine. We had aces, we had a double fault, we had great returns from the ad side by Azarenka (she only managed one break point in this 16 minute extravaganza), and most of all, we had a contest of wills. Azarenka finally decided to be more proactive and force the issue. A sensible idea, given she was already on tired legs and her relaxed approach to the match had her down a set and two breaks by now. She was also taking advantage of classic Sharapova stubbornness: the Russian was hell bent on going up the T when serving from the ad court. Lindsay Davenport called her out on it after Deuce #4. Five points later and faced with a second serve, Sharapova tried for a kicker out wide to break the trend a bit. Azarenka was all over it. So no dice.
Watching this, you had the sense that even though Maria Sharapova had such a large lead, the match hung in the balance. Azarenka was dialed in, and the recent history between these two started hovering around the court. With the tension mounting, what did Sharapova do? She stuck to her guns, and kept blasting away. And when presented with a serve from the ad court, she kept going for that T. At Deuce #9, she finally got Azarenka to send a short return back, and without an ounce of hesitation she leaned on her backhand to send a cross-court missile. No reply from Azarenka, and that sealed the game. And the match, really.
Victoria Azarenka was not bad today. Far from it. But she was not as sharp as she needed to be on this day, with Sharapova playing such committed, forceful tennis. My only knock on Azarenka was her approach to the first set – with her tired legs, I felt she needed to go for more, try to push Sharapova back and take control of more rallies. In the end, she wasn’t too broken up by the result:
That was one happy No. 1. Azarenka looking relieved her season is over and can’t wait for her 3 week vacation to start. #wtachamps
— Beyond The Baseline (@SI_BTBaseline) October 27, 2012
This is easily understandable, given how she had clinched the year-end #1 ranking and also since Azarenka had logged the second-most minutes of anybody this week:
Azarenka said her body was feeling the four straight days of play. Saw Radwanska this morning and they both just laughed. #wtachamps
— Beyond The Baseline (@SI_BTBaseline) October 27, 2012
However, given just how well Maria Sharapova played, how well she moved, and how confident she looked against an opponent that had beaten her repeatedly on this surface for three years, better scheduling might not have been enough to alter the result of this match.
Sharapova was that good.
Final stats: