Roland Garros 2009

Sharapova - total cow or winner?

by Paul Myers

Article published on the 2009-05-28 Latest update 2009-05-28 09:19 TU

Maria Sharapova playing a shot against Nadia Petrova on 27 May
(Photo: Reuters)

Oh-my! How the crowds love an underdog. And the former world number one Maria Sharapova seemed to take to the Cinderella role rather well during her encounter on Court Suzanne Lenglen on Wednesday afternoon.

Sharapova will wake up this morning – not quite the queen of the ball – but certainly pleased to be at the third round stage.

The Florida-trained Russian has likened her poise on clay to a cow on ice. And at times she did look like a prize specimen from the meadows!

But like one of the other creatures from the barnyard, she’s got guts. Enough of them in fact to persevere where others would cower and die. The 22-year-old was making a pig’s ear of the final set against the Russian 11th seed Nadia Petrova.

But during a break in the decider, Petrova suddenly remembered that she wasn’t playing an unseeded ingenue in the second round of Roland Garros, but the women's game former top racquet.

Nadia Petrova playing a shot against Maria Sharapova on 27 May
(Photo: Reuters)

And Petrova duly deferred clutching defeat from the growling teeth of victory. It was 8-6 in the final set and the crowd roared it’s approval when Petrova finally yielded.

On the same court but a few years ago, the crowd booed Sharapova off, after the people deemed her guilty of gross gamesmanship.

Then the Russian spoke about being a competitor - needing to execute strategies along the lines of: you do what you’ve got to do, to do over who needs to be done!

After the match Patty Schnyder, the done one, faced the press and - choking back the tears of her own sporting limitations, but ultimately more expansive humanity - described herself as a “little champion”.

But Karma seems to have mollified Sharapova’s dogma and she’s been speaking about perspective having been away from the grand slams and the tennis circuit since last July, and not really playing any competitive matches due to a recurring shoulder injury.

Hence the reason why Ms triple grand slam champion arrives in Paris as unseeded. But she may well leave beloved.

Which begs the question – based largely on a variation of La Sharapova’s own imagery - how far do you need to be a total cow to be a winner?