When Ana Ivanovic surged to a 5-0 lead in the first set, with a triple break, Maria Sharapova’s perfect record at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix seemed endangered, but we know that how capable Ivanovic is of giving her fans a heartbreak and that’s exactly what happened today.
In the first set, Ivanovic managed to retain the lead, despite giving Sharapova an opportunity to win three straight games, but in the second set, after having a game point for 4-1, Ivanovic allowed Sharapova to plot her way back into the set and, as it turned out, into the match. From the middle of the second set Ivanovic lost her groove and Sharapova completed the hat-trick in Stuttgart. Final score: 3-6 6-4 6-1. Ivanovic’s confidence and determination that lead her to the 5-0 initial lead were simply too good to be true!
Has anyone kept track of how many Porche cars Sharapova has? She has already given one to her boyfriend Grigor Dimitrov, who has actually also lifted a trophy today, in Bucharest.
Fashion info: En route to her Porsche Tennis Grand Prix title, Sharapova was wearing a purple Nike Women’s Summer Premier Maria Tank matched with a grey Nike Women’s Summer Premier Maria Skort.
I hope you enjoyed our coverage of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, especially our photographer Jimmie48‘s exclusive reporting live from the courts and his galleries on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The story is more about Sharapova grinding through a match with her unmatchable fighting spirit once again than “Ivanovic melting” anything. Maria ripped a lot of winners to turn this match in her favor. Pretty unfair look on this final, in my opinion. You can see that lokking at the stats: Maria fired 34 winners to 24 UE to Ivanovic’s 32 winners and 23 UEs. It was a pretty close match, there was no “melting”. Maria was just better at key points.
Marcel Carneiro, it was a mix of Sharapova’s signature determination and Ivanovic’s signature meltdown. Two double faults in one game, to hand Sharapova a double-break, I call a meltdown.
Ibtisam Ahmed, it’s definitely astonishing how well Sharapova has been doing on clay and how unaccustomed she used to be to the surface not so long ago.
It’s a look at the break points that really tells the difference – Sharapova converted 7 of 9, Ivanovic converted 5 of 10. It was actually a really good match from both players, it’s just that the Russian had more of a fighting spirit. Also, is probably worth mentioning that this is the first time that she has won one title three times, and that too back-to-back. To think she was a “cow on ice” a few years ago and now has the best winning percentage on clay out of all active players 🙂