Sara Errani has learned to do the unexpected, which is why she has reached her first Grand Slam final at Roland Garros. But the inventive Italian is now confronting her greatest challenge in the form of Maria Sharapova, who has won 18 of her last 19 matches on clay and battered Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova 6-3, 6-3 in the semis.
The diminutive but ambitious Errani has answered every challenge put in front of her en route to the final: she ran past two former Roland Garros champs in Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova, faced down 10th seed Angelique Kerber of Germany, and then showed more mental resilience than 2010 finalist Samantha Stosur in her semi.
Former titlist Martina Navratilova is more than impressed by the 25 year old. "She hits all the right shots," she said. "She plays so well within herself, doesn't go for too much. At the very end of the match [against Stosur] she hit a couple nervous shots, and maybe beginning of the third set there was a shot that she should have made that she missed. She missed a backhand crosscourt into an open court. I was like, Wow, this is really the first shot that she missed that she should've made the whole match. Good technique, great technique. She's got that grip that works okay. Because she's short, but she can hit a high ball that way. She's got a lot of confidence now."
First time
Even though they both trained in Florida as juniors and are the same age, Sharapova and Errani have never faced off. It will be a match-up between an ultra confident power baller who is a far better mover on clay than when she first came to Paris a decade ago, and a relentless retriever who plays a deceptively high level of offense when she gets a ball into her wheelhouse. Purely defensive players are not capable of making the finals of Roland Garros anymore, and the 5-feet-4 inch Errani has proved that she can take short balls and give them rides down the lines.
"The taller players have such a huge advantage," Navratilova said. "You have to be that much better, that much quicker when you're that short. She's giving away half a foot, at least, with just one step, if not more, on reach. So she's got to make up for that. Justine Henin did it, and now Errani is in the finals. Amazing stuff. It takes a lot of Chutzpah, so to speak, to think you can compete with players that are a foot taller than you are, but she's doing it. Sharapova has rarely overlooked an opponent and given that she has had trouble with scramblers in the past, there's no way that she will go into the final thinking it's a lock. But she is serving with much more accuracy and force than she did at this time last year, has been quite accurate off the ground and has been devastating in her return of serve games.
Impressive Sharapova
While she has improved her foot work and speed, she still can be had in end to end rallies, but it is not easy to get her moving when she is blasting balls into the corners from the first strike. "She's played just amazing tennis," Navratilova said. "She had that one hiccup match against [Klara] Zakopalova. She's been dominating winning 80% of the games on her opponents' serve, which is ridiculous. I think that will be the key to the final. Errani, as amazingly as she'd played and played really brave tennis, I just don't see how it can be enough for Maria's return of serve, which is her best shot, and Errani's serve is her worst shot. So that's a really bad matchup. When you talk about somebody that has a better chance of breaking their opponent's serve than holding their own, in my eyes, then it's not looking so good."
What is unknown is how Errani will react in her first Grand Slam final. Some players have been outstanding, such as Sharapova at 2004 Wimbledon, Ivanovic at 2008 Roland Garros, Francesca Schiavone at 2010 Roland Garros and Li Na at 2010 Roland Garros. Others such as former Roland Garros finalists Natasha Zvereva and Dinara Safina, froze when they got to the big stage. Sharapova is attempting to win a career grand Slam, which will certainly put some pressure on her, but while she has performed badly in a couple of Grand Slam finals, in particular earlier this year in the 2012 Australian Open final when she was bullied by Victoria Azarenka, that is usually because she is lacking confidence against a particular foe, rather than being overrun with nerves.
She will more than likely play at a fairly high level, so it will be up to 21st seed Errani to bring her best if she's going to have a sniff of a chance. "Their nerves will be there, I'm sure, for both of them, with Errani having nothing to lose, everything to gain, and Maria has a lot to gain but a lot to lose, as well," Navratilova said. "So it'll be interesting how the psyche plays out, but on paper Maria wins the match, no doubt about it. [But] anything can happen in a final. Maria is so tough and it took her so much to get to this point, I don't see her being overawed by the occasion.
She's got a chance to be in the history books as one ‑‑ now she'll be I think the 11th woman to have won all the slams. More power to her."
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