Everyone was waiting for another result. They expected that Masha, if she loses, then at least in a bitter struggle. But there was not even a hint of struggle. Moreover, it was even worse than in Australia. Aces and winners are fewer, double and unforced errors more. And if in Australia Sharapova had at least two break points, now there wasn’t a single one.
This could be understood if Serena played better than in Australia. But no. Statistics say that Serena had almost two times less winners, more unforced errors. Yes to hell with statistics - this was visible to the naked eye. If in Australia Serena was pure horror flying on the wings of the night, then yesterday we saw the usual Serena. The one that Masha once beat at Wimbledon.
Now about the pitch. She deserves a separate discussion, because both tennis players build the whole game on it. This line of statistics at first drives into a stupor. Serena in this match, the flow was much worse than in Australia - 58% versus 67%. And Masha, on the contrary, is better - 51% in Australia against 67% in Miami. What turns out? Masha serves better than herself in Australia and better than Serena in Miami. And Tarpishchev said - if Sharapova delivers above 60%, she should win. What then is the matter? Maybe these 60%, which is enough for everyone, is not enough for Serena? Or maybe the whole point is that Masha won only half points from the first pitch?
Like it or not, the percentage of hits on the first serve has nothing to do with it. But very much more so with the quality of the feed. Sharapova’s maximum speed in this match was 179 km per hour. For the tour as a whole in its current state, this is basically enough, although for 180 it would not hurt. But even “for 180” for Serena at the reception is not a problem. So it turns out that the supply, even if it goes, still does not give Mary an advantage in the draw.
There are two questions, as usual: who is to blame and what should be done?
Of course, the coaching staff is to blame, who did not prepare Masha for this meeting at all and thereby did everything so that the child developed a “Serena complex”. Everyone heard Maria Sharapova talking about the upcoming meeting with Serena: "This is just another match." Maybe it was a banal scale for a press conference. But it seems that the phrase fully reflects the mentality of the coaching staff and Sharapova is prepared equally for all rivals. But Australian Open made it clear that you need to prepare for Serena separately. At least train the pitch. Maybe the headquarters was hoping that Serena would disappear from the tour again and remember the name? Short-sighted calculation. Although maybe we are unfair. Masha may be training the pitch as a routine, but a recent injury has slowed down the training process. Let's hope so. Deja vu, according to Morpheus, means a failure in the Matrix when changing programs. To change the program, you need time, and this time the time was not on the Machine side, because only a month and a half passed after the match in Australia.
But that is not all, and there is no excuse for the headquarters anyway. The coaches know no worse than us that the physical form of Mary is now very far from ideal. The match with Vera Zvonareva last week is the best proof of this. Why, one wonders, in Miami, before meeting with Serena, Plan B was not urgently developed? Yes, Michael Joyce was unable to accompany Maria to Miami for family reasons. But no one has yet canceled the phones. And this is just the question of what to do.
The match Williams against Shafarzhova showed that Serena can be nervous if you press on her. And this is not about force pressure (this is almost impossible), but psychological. It is impossible to interrupt and run across Serena - start combining. After all, brains are needed for something. Suppose that the porridge in the head does not work and combine. Then it remains only to recklessly take risks. After all, if you lose, for example, 1: 6, 1: 5 - then it will not be worse. By God, it would be better if Masha made 50 doubles in the match and went down in history. Then no one would say that it was Serena who beat her. And Serena herself after the match would not have run around the court with her finger raised and would not have shouted: “This is who the real number one is!”
Ksenia VITRYAK