Olympiad XXX Tennis: Women's Final Preview

Today was one of the most exciting days of the year in tennis as all four semifinals in the 2012 London Olympics occurred. In this post I wil just talk about the women's side of the draw.

Women's Semifinals Review
On the women's side, as I expected and predicted yesterday, Serena Williams made mincemeat out of reigning World #1 (*cough* *cough* according to the computer *cough*) Victoria Azarenka, removing the last obstacle to her path to playing in the Gold Medal match with a dominant 6-1 6-2 win. Maria Sharapova played up to form by reaching the final again by dashing the hopes of countrywoman Maria Kirilenko 6-2 6-3. Her path to the final really involved getting past fellow 4-time major champion Kim Clijsters, which she did in the quarterfinal round.

Women's Final Preview
Serena and Maria have met in two major finals (2004 Wimbledon, won by Sharapova and the 2007 Australian Open, won by Serena). That last match still reverberates in my mind as the best match I have ever seen Serena, and possibly any woman, play. She simply could not miss. There was no question about the outcome of the match after the second game. I think Serena had something like 25 winners to 3 unforced errors. The official score was 6-1 6-2 but it really wasn't even that close. Head-to-head the two have a surprisingly lopsided tally of 8 wins for Serena, 2 for Sharapova. In fact, after losing to Sharapova twice in 2004 in two awfully big matches (the other loss was the WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles) Serena has won every meeting in the subsequent 8 years, and has only dropped a single set (on clay) and won 14.

Their styles of play do not match up well for the Russian, because Sharapova has one gear, hit the ball hard, and if that doesn't work then hit it harder. Serena can absorb and return pace and moves extremely well. For Sharapova to have a chance (oh who am  kidding, she doesn't really have a chance!) she wil have to hope that Serena gets nervous as she approaches achieving one of her lifetime goals, winning a Gold Medal in singles (she already has two in doubles and is likely to win a 3rd one here) and the Russian needs to play out of her comfort zone. Even in that scenario, I don't see how Serena loses this match. As everyone knows, Serena has the best serve in women's tennis history and has now won at Wimbledon 5 times, thus sharing the title of best grass court player of her generation with her big sister. When she wins on Saturday, maybe she'll be the undisputed holder of that title.

MadProfessah's Prediction: Serena.