Maria Sharapova’s hard fought win at the Sony Open

Though the matches were disturbed by delays and rain, the crowd still cheered for their favorite players till the end

Though we might think that Spaniards are known to party all night but the top ranked Rafael Nadal was certainly not looking forward to waiting as late as 10:30 pm on Saturday to play the first point of his opening Sony Open match. This was led on by the previous women’s match which lasted for quite longer than it was expected and this is the main cause of the delay in Nadal’s match.

Talking about the previous Stadium Court match, Maria Sharapova and Lucie Safarova dragged a game of three hours which was going on quite sluggishly until Sharapova finally converted her ninth match point to put away the tenacious Czech 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), 6-2. When Safarova’s last shot fell into the net, the standing-room-only crowd roared and cheered for their all time favorite Maria Sharapova. After the match, the obviously tired Sharapova confessed “I had so many opportunities, but she kept hitting unbelievable shots. It was like one more, one more. I said, ‘How many chances are you going to get?” The match constituted of 228 points in total and the first match point for Sharapova came at the two hour mark and from there it took her nearly 55 minutes to close it out and send the ticket holders back home before the stadium filled once again for the two late night matches which were to follow later that night.

Following Nadal’s delayed match, there had to be a women’s match between Samantha Stosur and Coco Vandeweghe which now clearly means had to be delayed even further till midnight. On the same afternoon, the defending champion Serena Williams was able to survive a great scare and managed to eliminate Caroline Garcia of France (6-4, 4-6, 6-4) in a tough match which was interrupted by the rain. Garcia is certainly a tough competitor and is only 20 years old. She ranks at 74 in the world and we might remember her for her biggest achievment in 2011 French Open when she took a lead over Maria Sharapova. That day, Andy Murray tweeted: “The girl Sharapova is playing is going to be No. 1 in the world one day. Caroline Garcia, what a player. U heard it here first.”

source: miamiherald