By Bill Simons
MELBOURNE, Australia—It was going to be just another ho-hum second round putdown, another Russian rout by tennis’ prime Putin pal, Maria Sharapova.
After all, the icy elegant icon, who is celebrated from Moscow to Manhattan Beach, who has won more millions and Porches then you can imagine, sprinted out of the Rod Laver Arena gate today with a typical no -nonsense ferocity against her anonymous Russian foe, Alexandra Panova.
Clearly, Maria was taking no prisoners.
It looked like this “ova vs. ova” encounter was all but “ova” as the most famous “ova” in the world barely blinked, racing to score a dominant 6-1 first-set victory in just 26 unsparing minutes.
And why not?
Sharapova, who is poised to possibly again become No. 1 in the world, is ranked 149 slots ahead of Panova. She’s won five Grand Slams and 162 Slam matches, while Panova, a lowly qualifier, has prevailed in just one Slam match. Sharapova has won $32,730,228. Panova has banked only $769,370. And Maria is one of only six players to have collected a career Grand Slam.
This was like stealing candy (or should we say Sugarpova) from a baby.
After all, Maria hadn’t lost to a player outside the the top 150 in over four years. She hadn’t lost to a fellow Russian in a Slam in five years, hadn’t lost in a first- or second-round match in over a year, and came into Melbourne fresh from a win in the Brisbane warm-up tourney.
That the contest was lopsided didn’t seem to bother the Center Court fans. A guy named Federer was warming up in the wings and waiting to play his second-round match.
But then again, this is sports, and dare we say, “It’s not ‘ova’ until it’s ‘ova.’” Plus, Sharapova hasn’t won here in Melbourne for seven long years. And she has a curious history of scare matches (Karin Knapp, Camille Pin) in the early rounds here. In fact, in 2010 she lost in the first round to fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko.
Sharapova was unleashing her shrill shrieks. Ump Kader Nouni was displaying his enchanting, almost operatic, bass tones. And babies were howling in section 13. But Panova was barely making a peep.
Then, in a flash, the world changed.
Sharapova recalled the moment afterward: “I was up 30-love on the first service game [of the second set]. New balls, a few sloppy errors, [and] all of a sudden your opponent gets a bit more confidence and thinks she has a chance … In her mind [she’s thinking], ‘Well, wait, I’m not out yet.’ Little by little it’s a combination of … you kind of going the wrong direction and her starting to play quite well.’
Panova began to hit out, making her angles and kissing the lines. Now Sharapova was on the run, and her movement seemed suspect. Imperious and beside herself, she gestured in frustration to no one in particular. ‘Twas a bad day at the office.
Panova stepped into her returns while Sharapova struggled on her serve. Maria later conceded that she was trying to hit big first serves and go for the lines “when I didn’t have a good rhythm.”
And her mindset wasn’t so great either.
“My [mental] process through the match … was pretty negative,” she confided. “I was dwelling too much on my mistakes, what I was doing wrong, not really being in the present, something that I’m usually really good at.”
All the while, Panova was showing she’s pretty good at tennis. She served big and took the second set, 6-4, and was soon up two breaks and 4-1 40-15 in the deciding third set.
But tennis is all about finishing. Everyone wondered whether the Moscow kid, who was on the big stage for the first time, could finish off Queen Maria, who managed to fight back and nearly even the match.
Still, Panova took advantage of a string of errant Sharapova forehands to gain two match points. But her belief and her strokes fell short.
The greatest fighter in women’s tennis who’s not named Serena willed her way back. What else is new? Maria is Siberia-tough.
Was Sharapova’s stunning 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 win simply a matter of experience?
Was it due to her foe’s collapse or her deep—been there, done that—belief? To her not exactly impartial boyfriend Grigor Dimitrov, days like today “define who you are. It’s simple … [Maria’s] been fighting throughout all these years, through everything that was in her way. [She] jumped all the hurdles and all the obstacles. By far [she is] the greatest fighter ever.”
Or was it simply, as her dad Yuri told IT 11 years ago, that Maria “was born to be a champion”?
Sharapova herself revealed the obvious, saying, “I’m quite a stubborn individual … I like winning more than I like losing … I was thinking about it too much, instead of just being in the present [and] saying, ‘Hey, go up to the line; do what you do; do what you’ve done thousand of times.’ I’m good at that and I’ll continue to be good at that. But some days are just a little off. Today was one of them.”
And today’s match seemed to present more questions than answers.
Is there any simpler truth in sports than that great champions are great because they find a way to prevail even when they’re stinking up the gym?
Aside from Serena, is Maria the best fighter in the game?
Why does Maria’s mental toughness seem to vanish when she faces Serena?
More immediately, last year in the third round Li Na was within an an inch or so of being eliminated by Lucie Safarova, but survived and came back to capture the title. So now we ask: Will history repeat itself?
Can Maria—our survival artist du jour—return from the brink and ten days from now, will Martina Navratilova present her the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup?
In any case, Alexandra Panova will be watching and wondering, “What if?”
