Women's tennis desperately wants Maria Sharapova to do well – never more so than on the eve of the French Open – and, need it be repeated, not exclusively for reasons to do with the clean swing of her racket.
She played competently enough at the Foro Italico to beat the Australian Sam Stosur for the ninth time in a row and take the Rome Masters title, but it was a grinding performance in a dull match.
At a press conference last week, a journalist remarked that her tumble in a match particularly excited males in the crowd, a remark so crass the player could only play it down with sarcasm. She is well used to it. "I've done many things in my life. I love shoots and I love fashion, to get away from reality," she said. "Then you come home and you're in your pyjamas in front of the TV."
Here in Rome, after two hours' delay for rain, the crowd in the Campo Centrale tried hard to create excitement around the error-littered action, to no avail. The 24-year-old Russian, moving with well‑drilled ease, bobbed and grunted and barely broke sweat in seeing off an opponent who had clearly left her best tennis in the semi-finals, and won 6-2, 6-4 in an hour and 23 minutes.
She has obviously recovered from the illness that kept her out of three tournaments in February, and, after reaching the final in Miami and re-entering the top 10 in April, her season is looking up.
It was her first title in four finals since her last trophy, the 22nd of her career, in Strasbourg last year. Among active players, only Venus Williams (43), Kim Clijsters (41) and Serena Williams (37) have won more.
Stosur, the first Australian to reach this final since Lesley Hunt in 1976, will have to rediscover her A game before Roland Garros, where she lost in the final to the vibrant Italian Francesca Schiavone. She has concentrated on her clay tennis to the point where it is now her favourite surface. Stosur beat Schiavone here in three sets on Thursday in the quarter-finals, and looked even better defeating China's Li Na, 7-6, 6-0 to reach the final.
Yet, but for some resistance in the second set, she did not much trouble the world No8 when it mattered. Sharapova had to do little remarkable to go 4-0 in the first set and an Italian optimist inspired mocking laughter when he shouted before Stosur's next serve, "Come on Samantha, you can do it."
She did get back to 4-1, and Sharapova double-faulted for 4-2 – but these were illusions of parity.
Fluffed ground strokes and grit were the stuff of the second set. There was much better tennis in the women's championship than this, memorably Schiavone's rousing comeback to beat the Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova in the third round. And Stosur, too, showed glimpses of her undoubted class. It was a pity such form was not seen in the final. Nonetheless, the sponsors will be ecstatic. Sharapova is rehabilitated and ready for her close-up.
She played competently enough at the Foro Italico to beat the Australian Sam Stosur for the ninth time in a row and take the Rome Masters title, but it was a grinding performance in a dull match.
At a press conference last week, a journalist remarked that her tumble in a match particularly excited males in the crowd, a remark so crass the player could only play it down with sarcasm. She is well used to it. "I've done many things in my life. I love shoots and I love fashion, to get away from reality," she said. "Then you come home and you're in your pyjamas in front of the TV."
Here in Rome, after two hours' delay for rain, the crowd in the Campo Centrale tried hard to create excitement around the error-littered action, to no avail. The 24-year-old Russian, moving with well‑drilled ease, bobbed and grunted and barely broke sweat in seeing off an opponent who had clearly left her best tennis in the semi-finals, and won 6-2, 6-4 in an hour and 23 minutes.
She has obviously recovered from the illness that kept her out of three tournaments in February, and, after reaching the final in Miami and re-entering the top 10 in April, her season is looking up.
It was her first title in four finals since her last trophy, the 22nd of her career, in Strasbourg last year. Among active players, only Venus Williams (43), Kim Clijsters (41) and Serena Williams (37) have won more.
Yet, but for some resistance in the second set, she did not much trouble the world No8 when it mattered. Sharapova had to do little remarkable to go 4-0 in the first set and an Italian optimist inspired mocking laughter when he shouted before Stosur's next serve, "Come on Samantha, you can do it."
She did get back to 4-1, and Sharapova double-faulted for 4-2 – but these were illusions of parity.
Fluffed ground strokes and grit were the stuff of the second set. There was much better tennis in the women's championship than this, memorably Schiavone's rousing comeback to beat the Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova in the third round. And Stosur, too, showed glimpses of her undoubted class. It was a pity such form was not seen in the final. Nonetheless, the sponsors will be ecstatic. Sharapova is rehabilitated and ready for her close-up.
