Azarenka v. Sharapova Miami Women's Final Preview Maria Sharapova will meet former Miami champion Victoria Azarenka in Saturday's final. We asked senior editor Steve Tignor four questions about the match:
1. Who will win?
You can’t tell from their head to head. Sharapova and Azarenka are 2-2. If you have to give this edge in this category to anyone, it would be Azarenka. She won their only meeting of 2010, in Stanford, 6-4, 6-1. But there won’t be any momentum either way; neither player will feel like they can’t beat the other.
Azarenka is also the higher-ranked player—No. 8 to Sharapova’s No. 13. But Maria, after two years of fits and starts, appears to be gaining. She’s followed up her semifinal in Indian Wells with a final here.
On pure form, Azarenka is also the player to take. She’s beaten two Top 5 players, Kim Clijsters and Vera Zvonareva, in straight sets in the last two rounds, and made it look easy both times. She’s playing with more energy, positivity, and margin for error than normal, going after her shots but not going for broke. She seems to be using a little more topspin for net clearance, while still getting on top of the rallies. And I get the feeling her superb tan is intimidating her opponents as well.
Sharapova, no surprise, has been inconsistent—she won her last two matches in three sets—but has gritted her way through that inconsistency. If Azarenka is better on form, Sharapova remains the better big-match player.
The Pick: Azarenka in three.
2. Based on the current hierarchy, is this a good or bad final for the WTA?
It might depend on your tolerance for modern-day grunting, shrieking and cooing, because this match is going to give us a lot of it, from both ends. But if your ears can stand it—and, given a few minutes to adjust, mine can—this is a very good final for the WTA. Sharapova is, if nothing else, a star, and Azarenka is, at her best, an athletic and dynamic player who could have a lot of appeal. I think the tour would be happy to see Sharapova going deep at big tournaments, and that it’s a positive development that a player like Azarenka, who seemed to have Grand Slam potential a few years ago—she beat Serena Williams in the final here in 2009—would show that that potential is not necessarily going to go to waste.
3. Azarenka won Miami two years ago, but has been a disappointment at the Slams. Is this her ceiling?
She has tended to start seasons quickly and fade midway. As you said, she won in Miami two years ago, right after reaching the Indian Wells final. We all expected big things, but by the time the U.S. Open rolled around, she looked spent. Azarenka trains and plays with a lot of intensity, an intensity that’s tough to keep up and hold steady for 10 straight months. Based on that, I would say that part of her problem hasn’t been her ability, but how she’s managed her seasons and paced herself.
As far as her game when she’s on court, Azarenka, more than any other Top 10 player, can be utterly horrible—I watched her look totally clueless losing to Gisela Dulko at the French Open last year. In some matches, like that one, she can appear to have too much footwork, to jump and hop around needlessly—that intensity thing again. Most important is what I mentioned earlier, her margin of error. If she can build some of that in—add a little Caroline Wozniacki to her game—she can challenge for majors.
4. With all of her struggles this week, would even a title be enough to convince you that Sharapova is back?
My first answer is yes, because it would be an impressively gritty run, and because I want the answer to be yes. But my second, and more long-lasting answer, is no. I just go finished watching her lose badly to Wozniacki in Indian Wells, so it’s too soon to say that those kind of wretched performances aren’t going to happen again. The best thing that would likely come out of a win would be some confirmation, on both sides, that her fairly new coaching relationship with Thomas Hogstedt—which was a big change from her relationship with Michael Joyce—is starting to pay dividends.
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