STANFORD, CALIF. – We can’t say we weren’t warned. It was Marion Bartoli who cautioned us, “If you have a Sharapova-Azarenka match, you better come up with some earplugs.” If you’ve got a pair, it looks like it’s time to break them out. And bring a decibel meter while you’re at it.
Maria Sharapova‘s two-hour 1-6, 6-2, 6-2 semifinal turnaround against Agnieszka Radwanska on Saturday set the stage for a cacophonic clash between two of the sport’s most adept shriekers in the Bank of the West Classic final.
“I was just all over the map in the first set — way too many errors,” said Sharapova, who has now won her last four decisions against Radwanska. “I just started being a little bit more patient and giving her a chance to play. In the first set, I was making so many errors. It wasn’t like she was doing something that was making me run and hit winners. I was making three unforced errors a game, which is quite a lot.”
The official scorecard had the 15th-ranked Russian down for 40 unforced errors on the night. But it also had her down for 40 winners.
“I needed to cut down on those errors, which I did,” said Sharapova. “Little by little after that, I played really solid the next two sets.”
A day earlier, following her 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 quarterfinal win over Elena Dementieva, the Michael Joyce-coached Sharapova had waxed poetic on the ephemeral nature of perfection and on how, as an athlete, it’s how you overcome imperfection that reveals your true character.
“It’s tough to feel perfect all the time,” she said. “One of the toughest things in the game itself is keeping concentration and the focus. You know that if you play a few good games you’re likely going to have a little bit of a letdown. It’s not about the letdown; it’s how you get yourself out of it. Even if you win the match 0 and 0, you’re still not going to hit a winner on every ball. You’re still going to try to be better, and that’s how I look at things.”
On Saturday she put those words into action.
“From the beginning, I didn’t want to find myself having too many long rallies with her because that’s what she wants,” Sharapova explained. “I think I overplayed myself a little bit at my own game, maybe over-thinking it instead of playing my way. But that was just the first set. No matter how easy or bad or unsuccessful it was you still have a match ahead of you.”
Radwanska – at 21 one of the WTA Tour’s most promising players and who, regardless of her loss to Sharapova, will return to the top 10 when the rankings are updated on Aug. 2 – has yet to reach a final in 2010.
