In a match that was essentially over once Serena Williams got out to a 0-30 lead on Maria Sharapova’s serve in the opening game of the match, the world No. 1 dispatched her “rival” with an easy 6-2, 6-4 victory to give her 17 wins in a row in that series, put herself in prime position to win her 21st major, cap her second Serena Slam and leave herself seven matches in New York away from winning the first calendar Grand Slam since 1988.
Standing in her way is Saturday’s final opponent Garbine Muguruza, a 21-year-old from Spain who defeated Serena at last year’s French Open, but fell to her in this year’s Australian. But looking at the numbers, Muguruza has a little between a prayer and a Hail Mary of knocking off Serena in Saturday’s final.
Serena is a dominant 20-4 in Grand Slam finals, 14-2 against players she isn’t related to by blood. She’s 13-2 as the better seed. She’s 38-1 on the year and has won her last 27 Grand Slam matches. Serena has never lost to anyone born after 1987 in a Slam final (Muguruza was born in 1993). Since 2012, she’s 23-1 in Slams against players in the top 20. In short, Serena appears just about unstoppable as she goes for Slam No. 21 and a chance to tie Steffi Graf for No. 22 at the U.S. Open.
But that’s when Serena is stoppable — right when you think she can’t be. No one thinks she’s realistically going to lose to Muguruza, but nobody thought she was going to lose to Alize Cornet last year at Wimbledon or to Sloane Stephens in 2014 at the Australian or to Muguruza herself in the second round at the French Open. Serena never loses the matches you think she might, she tends to lose the matches you never would expect. Case in point: Williams almost choked away the French Open final she was in complete control of against Lucie Safarova, up and a set and a break. Pressure is a heck of a thing.
(AP)
But tthose losses come when Serena is playing her “C” game, if that. In the past three matches — wins over Venus, Victoria Azarenka and Sharapova — Serena is at her “A” game, playing a brand of tennis that’s virtually unbeatable, particularly from a 21-year-old who should be cowed by the big stage of playing her first Grand Slam final.
“Serena simply plays tennis much better than [Sharapova] does,”coach Patrick Mouratoglou told The New York Times. In terms of the talent gap between Serena and the rest of the WTA, that could go for anyone else.
And sometimes it’s just as simple as that.
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