Maria Sharapova ousts Jelena Jankovic to prevail in title match – Western & Southern Open 2011
Two former world number ones Russian Maria Sharapova and Serbian Jelena Jankovic battled it out on the hard courts of Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio as they met for the title match at the 2011 Western and Southern Open on 21st August. Although, both the players were extremely competitive, the 2010 runner up (Sharapova) defeated her olden adversary in a seesaw thriller of 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-3.
In the first set of the match, Sharapova took on an assertive start of 4-1 but later, she committed many unforced errors and lack of precision resulted in her double faulting five times, costing her the opening set. Mean while, Jankovic took advantage of her adversary’s poor serve and broke the Russian’s serve three times.
Jankovic accomplished 53% of her service points and 50% of her return points in the total set, while Sharapova attained to win 50% of her serves and 47 % of her returns in the total opening set.
Rallying it out Jankovic bagged the set by shooting an acute angled backhand as Sharapova failed to hit it, she was able to achieve a total set score of 52%.
The second set saw a complete reversal of fate and this time Jankovic was unable to win the tie break and hence lost the set. The Serbs geometric precision had failed her and she struck five double faults while Sharapova struck only three.
Basking in the glory of the opening set, Jankovic held on to a confident service game to lead the set at 1-0. Availing the crucial break point Jankovic was 2-love up, as the double faults kept pouring in. However, Sharapova broke her opponent back-to-back to get back on top of things and managed to square off the second set at 2-2 by holding her serve. Both the players rallied it out till Sharapova pushed the game in to a tie break by aptly holding on to her serve. The 24 year-old Russian finally won the last five points of the tie breaker and took the second set.
Following her victory in the second set Sharapova said, “That's pretty much it, putting five points together that were well-played".
By the third set both the players had triumphant over a set each and the third set was the deciding factor of who was a better player. Amidst the third set Jankovic broke Sharapova’s serve three times and put in her utmost effort. However, the 2006 US Open champion (Sharapova) had many fans that boosted her performance through their cheering and after a long rally Sharapova finally cornered Jankovic to snatch the decider set at 6-3 as Jankovic double faulted twice.
After the match Jankovic said, "This match could have gone either way, I had my chances. It showed the match is not over until you shake the hand".
While Sharapova said, "It's been a great year for me so far, it can always be better or worse. I'm definitely proud I've gone further than last year, after the disappointing loss here last year."
Maria Sharapova won her 24th WTA title in Cincinnati and will now be looking to play the US Open.
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