There’s no doubt about it: The unfolding of the women’s draw at this year’s French Open has been one of the most enthralling for a very long time.
The top seed and defending champion, Serena Williams, fell in the second round while the second seed and 2011 champion, Li Na, fell at the first hurdle.
And injured No5 Victoria Azarenka did not make it to the starting line and No3, Agnieszka Radwanska lost in the third round.
Other Roland Garros champions and finalists fared little better. The in-form 2008 titlist and No11 seed, Ana Ivanovic, won two matches, and Sam Stosur and Sara Errani made the fourth round and quarters respectively.
Gradually, both halves opened up for two very contrasting players to make their equally contrasting progress to the final.
Maria Sharapova, No7 seed, former No1, was winner at Roland Garros in 2012 and the losing finalist last year. Experience was on the side of the 6ft 2in Russian, and so was good fortune. She had been drawn to meet her greatest rival, Williams—the woman who had beaten her here last year and in their previous 14 matches—in the quarters but instead played and beat the fast-rising but unseeded Garbine Muguruza.
The 5ft 6in 22-year-old Simona Halep came to Paris at a career-high No4 after a break-through season that began a year ago. Last year, she had arrived at Roland Garros ranked No57, compared with Sharapova’s No2, but after losing in the first round, she went on to win all seven of her titles, across all surfaces, by the time this year’s French Open came around. She had now made her first Major final.
Sharapova’s progress had been heavy weather compared with her young opponent. She dropped the first set in her last three matches to notch up 10 hours on court. Halep had not dropped a set to build up just 6hrs 26 mins on court. And she was breaking new ground with almost every tournament.
Halep won the French junior title in 2008, but could she be one of only five others to do the junior/senior double? The last to do so was Halep’s idol, Justine Henin, also the last woman to win the French title without dropping a set.
Halep was also aiming to become only the second woman born in the 1990s to win a Major—Petra Kvitova being the other. And she was also hoping to emulate her manager, Virginia Ruzici, who was the last Romanian to win the French title.
However, Sharapova not only boasts buckets of experience but a remarkable clay record. Since the 2011 Roland Garros semis, she had lost only four times on clay—three of those to Williams. She was on an 18-1 clay run, winning two titles, this season. And one of those titles came only last month, in Madrid, at the expense of Halep.
Not that it was a walk-over: Halep stormed to a 6-1 first set before Sharapova, in typically pugnacious and powerful style, stormed back for the loss of just five more games. But as Halep said ahead of this eagerly anticipated final of contrasts, of old star versus rising star, of towering power versus compact speed and balance, of experience over nothing-to-lose:
“I know that it will be very tough to manage the emotions, but I will try my best. [Sharapova] is very tough player, so it will be a tough match. I will try to stay relaxed and to hit, to play my game. Because if I play my game relaxed and with pleasure, to be aggressive and to play fast, I think I have chances.”
In fact, she had a chance right at the start of the match, as Sharapova opened with a wayward service game—not for the first time this tournament. First a double fault then a forehand hit long gave away a break. But the Russian had no intention of losing the first set for a fourth match in a row, and went straight on the attack. She held her next serve and hit back hard in the fourth game.
Sharapova hit two crushing down-the-line forehand winners to earn a break point, and Halep was punished for a poor drop shot. Another pounding forehand from Sharapova brought the break back. Already half an hour old, the match was all square: two game all, 17 points each.
Halep chased and bounced and retrieved to force three deuces in the next, helped by another double fault, but Sharapova’s hitting from the baseline was relentless—shot after shot struck with her long levers went beyond the reach of Halep.
The Russian held and then broke, but the spirited, hustling Halep was not about to back off: She held serve to love and broke, but Sharapova upped the stakes with another booming forehand onto the sideline and a return-of-serve winner to break for the set, 6-4. It had taken an hour of pummelling tennis from the 2012 champion and gutsy resistance from the newcomer.
It felt that, should Sharapova get a head start in the second set, she might run away with the match, but nothing could have been further from the truth. She did indeed break quickly in a long second game but wavered on her own serve as Halep sprinted and chased every ball to force errors and break back. Sharapova survived three break points in the next, Halep two in the one after, and then the Romanian was rewarded for her perseverance with a break in the ninth.
But Halep’s was hesitant on serve, and luck turned against as a net cord from Sharapova died for a winner on break point. They exchanged two more breaks to take it to 6-6—this time when Halep broke a string on break point.
Again, Sharapova took a lead, taking ever-more time to prepare for every first and second serve. It seemed to hinder rather than help, and a 5-3 lead evaporated as Halep lifted her game to win four straight points and the set. This gripping final would become the first at Roland Garros to go to three sets since 2001.
Sharapova returned from a long comfort break Halep immediately. But after almost two-and-a-half hours of tennis, the Russian was given a time warning, lost momentum and then her serve, and Halep went on to hold for the first time in seven games.
All at once, Halep seemed to have the upper hand, and came within a whisker of breaking to take the lead but Sharapova survived four deuces and two break points to level at 2-2. Her tennis speeded up, and her rhythm and intensity soared, but Halep would not bow. They exchanged breaks again, but that left Sharapova the chance to serve for the match. Now, the X-factor, experience, surfaced one last decisive time and she powered to a love hold and an emotional victory.
Ten years after winning her first Major at Wimbledon as a teenager, Sharapova’s second French title, won via four three-setters in a row, speaks volumes about her fitness and determination.
The victory will take her up to No5 in the world and, with only one match-win to defend for the rest of the season—she missed much of last year with shoulder problems—she can realistically see No1 on the horizon again.
But Halep, too, has far to go and much to win. This was a gritty, classy, mature performance under the heaviest of pressure and has earned her the No3 ranking. And surely her great balance and footwork will serve her well on the coming grass, for while she won in ‘s-Hertogenbosch last summer, she fell in the second round of Wimbledon.
But the clay of 2014 belongs to France’s impressive champion: Sharapova.