The Hindu : Sport : Sharapova is champion

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

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Sharapova is champion

VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED: Russia's Maria Sharapova (left), the winner of the WTA Tour Championships with runner-up Serena Williams. - AP

LOS ANGELES, NOV. 16. Serena Williams' injury-induced weakened serves drove Maria Sharapova to distraction. Two games away from ending the season in defeat, the Russian teenager focussed on holding her own serve.

Sharapova overcame the early third-set mental lapse and beat Williams for the WTA Championships title 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 on Monday night in a rematch of their Wimbledon final.

The 17-year-old Russian will rise to a career-high fourth when the year-end WTA rankings are released on Tuesday.

"I don't think I could've asked for anything better this year," Sharapova said. "It's been an extraordinary year for me. I know that I'm not showing a lot of emotion, but I'm sort of just speechless."

Sharapova stunned Williams for the Wimbledon title in July, propelling the blond teenager to international stardom. She finished the year with five titles.

Williams trailed 5-2 in the second set when she called for a trainer after straining her abdominal muscle. The injury greatly affected Williams' serve — usually a 120-mph weapon but reduced to the 65-mph puff of a weekend hacker.

"After she got the medical treatment, I could tell that she had problems serving, but on the ground strokes she was just teeing off on everything," Sharapova said. "Beside her serve, she didn't look injured once she was playing, so she was actually being really tough. I couldn't capitalise on the weak serves that she hit."

Leaves court

Williams left the court for five minutes and returned to have her serve broken in losing the set 6-2.

She rolled to a 4-0 lead in the third, including winning the first 11 points of the set and twice breaking a flustered Sharapova.

"She figured that she can't really do anything from her serve so she had to hit everything as hard as she could and that's exactly what she did," Sharapova said. "There was just not too much I could do. I just tried to find a little opening and get back in there."

After the third game, the trainer reappeared to wind a large wrap around Williams' stomach. She slipped an ice bag under her shirt on later changeovers.

"It's definitely a muscle strain," said Williams, who felt a cramp in her stomach in the first game of the match. "I don't know how I stayed out there. I definitely thought about not finishing the match, but I like to fight, I guess." Williams described the pain as being 10.5 on a 10-point scale.— AP

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