Maria Sharapova nails dignified denial after another Serena Williams rout

It was raining on Maria Sharapova’s parade, as it has done for a decade, and on Melbourne, the scene of her latest public humiliation by Serena Williams. Yet, as she strode past into the wet and windy night, there was an ineluctable nobility about the best Russian tennis player there has ever been. She stared straight ahead, expressionless, dressed from blonde head to quick-stepping toes in black, and ducked her head into the courtesy car to be ferried away from another wretched battlefield to the comfort of her no doubt excellent living quarters. If we had stood in her way, she would have walked straight over the top of us.

This, it is apparent, is her destiny: never to beat Williams again no matter how well she plays, never to experience the joy that flooded over her at Wimbledon in 2004 when, in the final of a major at 17, she allowed the American only five games.

That the story did not pan out like that was not Sharapova’s fault but that Serena was just too damn good, certainly in 17 subsequent matches, the most recent delivering her a 19th major, 14 more than Sharapova’s admirable tally and only three fewer than Steffi Graf’s record accumulation of 22, which is there for the taking.

As Sharapova was whisked away, Williams was ready to party. She and Patrick Mouratoglou, her coach and partner, content together again after a rough 2014, could reflect on a perfect start to 2015. She might even do a calendar slam, if she is fit.

How the combatants saw their fight, another close but predictable victory for Williams, offered more affirmation of the facts than any surprises. Sharapova said: “No matter how you played, well or not, whatever the scoreline is, it’s always tough. But it will be all right.”

There is probably a clever psychological term for that but, in simple terms, it hurtles on from denial towards acceptance of the inevitable. In practical tennis-speak, Sharapova nailed it, though. She was, after all, aced 18 times in an hour and 51 minutes, the last of them the final shot of the contest after another that had been ruled a let.

“One of her biggest strengths is her serve. Maybe it’s something that has saved her in many matches. When the game was on her serve [with the score] 30-all, 40-30 or 15-30 a few times, she came up with really great serves.”

Game, set, match. And it just keeps happening. Perhaps that is Sharapova’s real victory: stoic if processed acceptance of defeat after giving her best – which is always second best against Williams. She can’t do any better than that. As for this serial losing, like a dose of repetitive strain syndrome, it is impossible not to respect her attitude.

“Yes, I haven’t won against her many times but, if I’m getting to the stage of competing against someone like Serena, I’m doing something well. I’m setting up a chance to try to beat her and it hasn’t happened. I’m not just going to go home without giving it another chance. That’s just not who I am and not who I was raised to be. I’m a competitor. I love playing against the best and, at the moment, she is.”

At the moment? At this moment, and all the other moments, past and those to come in the most lopsided rivalry in the history of women’s tennis. For Williams, victory against a player with whom she shares reciprocal, now muted loathing of Olympic proportions (rooted in their relationship with Grigor Dimitrov, once with her, now with Sharapova), her 6-3, 7-6 victory could not have been sweeter. She beat her biggest enemy and a running fever that threatened to halt her progress at any time over the past fortnight.

“Definitely I was not feeling great,” she said, confirming she was retching in the players’ tunnel during a 13-minute rain break in the first set. “I’ve never done that before. I guess there’s a first time for anything. In a way that just helped me. I felt better after that. My chest was really stuck at that point.”

CREDITS:- http://www.theguardian.com