Maria Sharapova did everything she had to do, as she promised, to win the 2014 French Open women’s championships. The world no.8 beat world no.3 Simone Halep 6-4, 6-7, 6-4, in 3hr02, two minutes shy of the record for the longest women’s final.
In the first set, Sharapova proved the steadier of the two, taking it 6-4, the first time she had won the first set this Roland Garros since the third round. Many predicted Halep would take the first set as she did in the pair’s Madrid final encounter, but Sharapova, competing in her ninth slam final to her opponent’s first, was, understandably, the steadier of the two in a nervy opening set.
Halep fought back in the second, and served for it twice, but proved too passive to close it out as Sharapova attacked relentlessly and took the set to a tiebreak. Sharapova led it 4-2 until Halep’s game of finding the angles and the open court began to pay off on the big points and she took the breaker.
The two swapped breaks in the first games of the third set before holding all the way to 4-4. It was here that Sharapova proved who was the vastly more experienced of the two. The hit and miss of her ground strokes vanished, her grunting went up a gear, and it was all hit as she raced through the last two games to take her second Roland Garros crown in her third consecutive final.
The match will go down as a spectacle for its see-saw nature not only in momentum but quality, too. More than anything though, it will be remembered for the spectacle provided by Sharapova as she grunted, fist-pumped her winners and her opponent’s errors, took her time between serves to often outrageous levels and then sunk to her knees as she won, the irony of the once-monikered cow on ice winning Roland Garros twice, the only slam she has managed to do so, anything but lost on her.
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