Maria Sharapova of Russia was totally dominate once more on Saturday as she claimed her first French Open Title, completed her Career Slam, and will regain the world No. 1 ranking on Monday. Just all in a days work as she took out No. 21 seed, Sara Errani of Italy in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2.
Maria was totally dominate, hitting 37 winners to Sara’s 12. Sara’s fastest serve in the match was 95 mph while Maria’s average 2nd serve speed was 93 mph. Sara, playing in her first Grand Slam final, wan’t able to find enough variety to force Maria into uncomfortable hitting positions. Maria broke Sara five times in the match and won more than 50% of Sara’s first and second serve points, in a match that lasted 1 hour and 29 minutes.
After the match, Maria said “When I won Wimbledon at 17, I thought that would be the most treasured moment of my career. But when I fell down on my knees today I realized that this was extremely special…”
This is especially meaningful considering that Maria had shoulder surgery to repair rotator cuff tendon tears in October, 2008. That surgery took her out of the game for a while. She played only one match (a doubles match) between August, 2008 and May, 2009. Most players never come back from that kind of surgery.
This win completed Maria’s “career slam,” having already won at Wimbledon in 2004 at the age of 17, the U.S. Open in 2006, and the Australian Open in 2008. And it vaults her past current No. 1, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus to regain the No. 1 spot for the first time since 2008.
Maria is the 10th woman to win all four majors and the first to do so since Serena Williams of the USA in 2002.
Sara didn’t have a bad tournament either. She claimed the doubles championship on Friday, teaming up with Roberta Vinci, and she will move into the top 10 in the world rankings for the first time on Monday.
