Maria Sharapova captured her second French Open championship in three years on Saturday, besting Simona Halep 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-4 in an electrifying three-hour final. It is Sharapova's fifth career Grand Slam title.
The finals at the Roland Garros had been wanting for drama for quite some time. Before Sharapova and Halep squared off on Saturday, no women's championship match had gone to three sets since Jennifer Capriati outlasted Kim Clijsters 12-10 in the third back in 2001. But in a match that smashed together two players perfectly engineered to both test each other's strengths and exploit each other's weaknesses, there was a good chance we were going to see something special.
Halep is one of the best movers in the game, but you knew she'd meet her match in Sharapova, who is as good as anyone on tour at going sideline to sideline with her groundstrokes, and generating pace from the baseline. Sharapova, erratic and error-prone as ever, figured to have her own issues with a player who defends as well as Halep, someone who wouldn't bail Sharapova out by making errors of her own.
True to form, the two combined to produce some truly breathtaking tennis. For three grueling hours, it was move and counter-move, punch and counter-punch; it was a gunslinging shootout, a marathon of will, an all-out slugfest. When the dust settled, Sharapova sat on her knees in the dirt, head in her hands, trying the taste of "two-time French Open champion" on her tongue.
It was a see-saw from start to finish, and the ending to the first set told you everything you needed to know about what kind of match this was going to be. Sharapova, playing some of her cleanest tennis of the tournament, was serving for the set. She double-faulted twice in the game and Halep broke to get back on serve. Then Sharapova broke to win the set.
We're talking about two of the best returners in the game, so maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that "serving for the set" didn't mean as much as you'd expect. There were 16 breaks in this match, and 16 holds. Serving or receiving, it made no difference.
In many ways it was a tale of second serves. One of the weird quirks in Sharapova's game is that her second serve is practically indistinguishable from her first. The difference between Halep's average first and second serve speed in this match, for example, was about 15 mph. For Sharapova, it was 5 mph. You can see in the graphic below that Sharapova was able to be more aggressive, positioning herself inside the baseline, while Halep had to play things more conservatively.
Second-serve return strike points:
[Courtesy ESPN CourtCast]
It's hard to tell if one tactic was more successful than the other. From this position, Sharapova is as tough a customer as you'll find, and she feasted on Halep's 80 mph second offering all day, winning 70 percent of those points. Halep didn't have as much success against Sharapova's second, but she certainly wasn't going to complain about the 12 points gifted her via Sharapova double faults.
Halep had to dig deep to pull out a wild second set, which again demonstrated the futility of either woman having the ball on her racket with the set on the line. Halep had a chance to serve out at 5-4 and 6-5, but got broken both times. Sharapova was serving in the tiebreaker at 5-3, with a chance to give herself three match points and put all the pressure on Halep. Two points from the championship, she couldn't do it. Halep stayed tough and sent the match to a third.
If either woman was feeling fatigued, they didn't show it. They kept wailing away, punishing each other from the baseline. Sharapova's shrieking reached a maniacal pitch. Her crosscourt forehand was murder. Halep started opening up the court by whacking her backhand down the line with perfect precision. Even with Sharapova up a break at 4-2, there was no indication of who was going to win.
Halep did, in fact, get the break back, thanks to two more Sharapova doubles. But Sharapova proved what a short memory she had, and it was she who found the extra gear in the end. She won the last eight points of the match, nearly all of them courtesy of massive knockout punches; there was nothing Halep could do.
After three hours and two minutes, Sharapova was finally a French Open champion for the second time. It was the 20th consecutive three-set match she's won on clay. She called it the toughest Grand Slam final she's ever played.
The runner-up who offered such a stiff test has every reason to hold her head high. This was a spectacular national showcase that should be the first of many Slam finals for the mega-talented 22-year-old Romanian. Mild-mannered and soft of speech, Halep showed a steely spirit and a strength of will that no doubt earned her a ton of fans. She's toiled in obscurity for much of her young career, but we should get used to seeing a lot more of her.
"This is my first Grand Slam speech," she said afterwards. "It's emotional and difficult for me but I hope to have many more, it's been the most amazing experience of my life."
If the 2014 French Open has been any indication, Halep need not worry. She is very much here to stay.
