Kerber downs Sharapova to show she’s grand slam contender

MARIA Sharapova was remarkable and ruthless, but Angelique Kerber gave as good as she got and showed she was a grand slam contender.

Russia's Maria Sharapova during her loss to Germany's Angelique Kerber.

MARIA Sharapova was remarkable, resilient and ruthless. She lost. So what on earth can be said in praise of her opponent? Angelique Kerber gave as good as she got, certainly, and her win suggested she was a grand slam contender.

It never quite works out that way, of course. Not these days. The women’s draw was crazily unpredictable in Paris and it is just as spectacularly wacky here. Sharapova was in imperious form, the tournament had seen Serena Williams and Li Na vanquished and a second Wimbledon title beckoned for the French Open champion. Even when common sense said this match was beyond her, the Russian appeared capable of hauling it back.

She saved six match points with the sort of derring-do you normally find in CGI blockbusters but Kerber, who is a relatively gentle soul out on court, narrowed her eyes and refused to buckle.

Her 7-6 4-6 6-4 victory was greeted with all-round delight. Kerber, who reached the semi-­finals at SW19 two years ago, had somehow managed to stay endearing while being a kind of tennis assassin at the same time. Not once did she underestimate her opponent.

The 26-year-old acknowledged the 2004 Wimbledon champion’s genius, ap­plauding her most spine-chilling returns. Sharapova was not about to engage in a touchy-feely contest, however. Her reaction is always the same no matter how audacious the winner, no matter who wins the point. She turns her back to the court and imposes calm. The Russian fills every space in every game with a stillness and fills every movement with noise. Any opponent of any calibre must, at some juncture, feel inferior or dull or intimidated.

Indeed, watching Sharapova is like watching one of those sped-up films of someone standing stock still in Piccadilly Circus while the crowds buzz, out of focus, all around them. She ­creates her own beautiful, athletic, imperious world. It cannot be easy at all to face her, what with the loud animalistic grunts and that innate sense of superiority.

Kerber, though, did so by applying accuracy to her battling spirit. When on the back foot, when forced on the defensive, when made to pelt to the other side of the court and back again, she was rarely content to do just enough to stay in the rally. Kerber devised winners when there was no winner, seemingly, to be had. The German made 11 unforced errors. The Russian made 49.

Sharapova said that sales rocket at her pop-up sweet shop when there has been criticism in the press of her choosing to market an unhealthy option to children. The encounter with Kerber was similar. As the crowd rooted for the underdog, Sharapova won their hearts back again with those brave, saved match points and an impressive resolve that practically refused to accept that the match was slipping from her grasp.

“I think it was a really good match on a really high level,” Kerber said. This sounded like modest understatement but is a fair summation of a contest that must have been draining mentally and physically.

Kerber laughed at the notion that she had won the equivalent of a World Cup penalty shootout and inevitably the two German women through to the quarter-­finals were asked about their football team’s progress in Brazil. It would be good, Sabine Lisicki said, for Germany to win the World Cup and a German woman to win Wimbledon this summer. The No 19 seed kept her part of the bargain with a 6-3 3-6 6-4 victory over Yaroslava Shvedova, of Kazakhstan, that was both controversial and curious. Lisicki called a medical time-out while facing break point in the third set and had to face questions about whether she was really too incapacitated to allow the game to finish before calling for the trainer.

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