Serena Williams is nursing a sore right elbow – and Maria Sharapova is trying hard, no doubt, not to smile too much. This title is hers to lose and when the draw fell kindly enough for the 2014 champion on Friday – keeping her away from the player for whom she has least affection on the Tour, as well as the steadily reviving Victoria Azarenka – the Russian had reason to be pleased. Her clay form is solid, with a semi-final in Madrid followed by last Sunday’s impressive, grinding win over Carla Suárez Navarro in the Rome final, and she looks and sounds stronger than she has done in a while.
She arrived from Rome – where Williams dropped out early to protect her minor injury – and enjoyed the serenity of an empty Court Philippe Chatrier to begin preparing for the defence of her title. “It was nice to be back when it’s quiet,” Sharapova said. “Just the ground staff around. Brings back a lot of memories from the years before.”
Not all of those were wondrous. For a long time Williams tormented her from Melbourne to Paris to Wimbledon to New York in an unbeaten stretch in majors after the Russian’s long-ago breakthrough against her at Wimbledon. But memories of her Parisian triumphs, last year over Simona Halep and three years ago beating Sara Errani, partly erase the pain of serial disappointment against the American.
Asked after the draw if she thought she had a better chance against Williams on grass or clay, Sharapova bridled and sidestepped, fixing the inquisitor with her hardest stare. As the writer Peter Bodo once described their relationship, it is “the best non-rivalry in the history of tennis.”
So, Sharapova can do no more than ignore it and do her best. First up for her is Kaia Kanepi, a four-time loser against her and of whom she said: “She’s played really well here. She’s capable of playing good tennis [they met in the quarter-finals here three years ago]. She’s a big hitter and great server. It’s a tough start for me – but I don’t know when it’s ever really an easy one at a grand slam.”
This would be Sharapova’s fourth French final in a row. How she would love to round it out with her third title.
As Friday’s the shadows lengthened at Roland Garros on Friday, Britain’s Johanna Konta squeezed into the main draw after blowing a match point while 5-0 up in the second against the French wild card Clothilde De Bernardi, winning 6-2, 6-1.
Konta, a Great Britain player for 10 years now since emigrating from Australia, paid guarded tribute to the LTA for her development, although she spends most of her time in Spain under the tutelage of Jose Manuel Garcia-Rodriguez and Esteban Carril. She is a good diplomat as well as a not bad player.
