Sony Ericsson Open: Women's Final REVIEW

Craig Hickman has more commentary and pictures on today's epic victory by Serena Williams 0-6, 7-5, 6-3 over Justine Henin in the final of the Sony Ericsson Open. Serena improved to 6-3 head-to-head versus the 5-time Grand Slam champion from Belgium, maintaining her winning streak on hard courts despite having only played in 3 tournaments this year. She now matches the World #1's tally of two titles and thirteen match wins in 2007.

The match was incredibly exciting. Serena started off not playing well but that may have been because Justine was playing amazingly well in the first set: hitting winners from all court positions, serving hard, returning deep and chasing down everything. Henin won the first set 6-0 in 26 minutes.

Serena didn't start the second set off well, getting broken in the first set but then broke back in the very next set and stayed close through most of the second set until the seventh game until she got broken again, which allowed to serve for the match at 5-4. However, at break point in that game after hitting a cross-court winner Justine lost her footing and fell on the court and then lost the next two points to lose that game and lost the next four points for Serena held her service game at love. Justine's service percentage noticeably declined as she served to take the second set to a tiebreaker but was broken on a backhand floating wide. The match was now even at 0-6, 7-5!

In the third set Serena's serve was much more effective and she also did an excellent job of returning Henin's serve into play. This lead her to taking a 3-0 lead (one break and 2 holds) in the final set. Serena had thus equaled Justine's feat of winning 6 games in a row, but evenly split between two sets. However, this lead Justine to fight back to even the score at 3-3. Serena held in the seventh game of the final set and after some long rallies on Justine's serve in the eighth game, Serena was able to earn the break which allowed her to serve for the match at 5-3. However, the drama was not over! Serena quickly fell behind 0-40 on her own serve as she served for the match but then was able to hit two backhand winners and a service winner to even the game score back to deuce. On match point, Serena missed her first serve but then blasted in a second serve right in the corner of the ad court which skidded off the line which Justine hit out and the match was over!

On clay I still believe that Justine has an advantage over Serena, but with her ranking all the way up to #11 it is very possible for Serena to be #1 before the end of the year and she has to be on the short list to win another Wimbledon or US Open title in 2007.