Maria Sharapova won her 54rd clay-court match out of her last 58 in the Roland Garros final on Saturday in Paris, slipping by Romania's Simona Halep, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. That's a mightily impressive .931 clip for someone that, until the beginning of 2012, was performing at a .771 clip on the surface.
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More remarkably, Sharapova's victory over Halep marks the 20th consecutive time that the Russian has won a three-set match on clay (she won four in succession at this year's French Open, over Sam Stosur, Garbine Muguruza and Eugenie Bouchard and Halep). To find her last such loss one has to go all the way back to 2010, when Sharapova dropped a three-setter to Justine Henin in the third round at Roland Garros.
The Russian has engineered a remarkable turnaround since 2011, when she was a formidable but not superhuman clay-courter, to now. How remarkable? Well, take a look at these numbers:
|
SINCE 2012
|
Wins
|
Losses
|
Matches
|
PCT
|
Titles
|
|
Clay
|
54
|
4
|
58
|
.931
|
7
|
|
Grass
|
9
|
3
|
12
|
.750
|
0
|
|
Hard
|
65
|
17
|
82
|
.793
|
1
|
|
Total
|
128
|
24
|
151
|
.842
|
8
|
|
Pre-2012
|
Wins
|
Losses
|
Matches
|
PCT
|
Titles
|
|
Clay
|
64
|
19
|
83
|
.771
|
3
|
|
Grass
|
63
|
13
|
76
|
.829
|
3
|
|
Hard
|
229
|
62
|
291
|
.787
|
16
|
|
Carpet
|
15
|
5
|
20
|
.750
|
2
|
|
Total
|
371
|
99
|
470
|
.789
|
24
|
Clay has gone from her third-best (aka, worst) surface in 2011, to being by far her best. Sharapova has won only one title off of clay since the beginning of 2012, and she's performing below .800 in terms of winning percentage on both hard and grass, while coming in at an impressive .931 on clay.
Now that the clay-court season has ended the ugly question rears its head: Will we have to wait until next spring for Sharapova to win more titles?