By Chris Oddo | Saturday April 29, 2017
Maria Sharapova’s run of dominance ended at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix on Saturday, as France’s Kristina Mladenovic edged her in a thrilling three-setter, 3-6, 7-5, 6-4.
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The loss ends Sharapova’s first tournament back from a 15-month doping ban, and catapults Mladenovic into her third final of 2017. Both players figure to be a factor on the clay for the remainder of the spring, but it was Mladenovic who stepped up and made the strong statement on Saturday, battling back from a set and break down to claim her 22nd victory of the season while improving to 6-1 in three-setters in 2017.
“It was a thriller match,” Mladenovic said after the match in an on-court interview. “Maria is a tough player, she is very aggressive from the first shot.”
Those comments were respectful, as was the post-match handshake and the tone of the match, but Mladenovic was one of the most critical players of Sharapova when news broke of her suspension from the tour last spring.
“She wasn’t really liked,” Mladenovic said of Sharapova last spring. “I respected her for her career but she wasn’t really nice nor polite, let’s be honest.”
She added: “All the other players are saying she’s a cheater. You sure doubt and think that she didn’t deserve all she won until now. That’s dreadful, but it’s good that it’s finally out.”
Mladenovic downplayed those comments and instead had some praise before the match this week. “She has been quite impressive; she has not played for a long time and has come back, beating players with different styles," Mladenovic said, according to Tennis.com’s Matt Cronin. "I think she is still mastering her 'A game.'"
The Russian was pretty flawless in reaching the semifinal, not dropping a set in three matches, but she struggled to stay consistent when Mladenovic pushed her. Known for her legendary ability to win three-set matches (she’s 151-50 in three setters after today’s loss), Sharapova was erratic late in the match and unable to gut out one of her trademark wins. Some brilliant points were mixed in with a lot of errors. Sharapova had a plus-3 winners to unforced errors ration in the first set, but that dipped to minus-four in the second set.
In the end the edge went to Mladenovic, who converted four of eight break points while Sharapova converted just three of 16. The Russian did manage to break to get back on serve at 4-5 of the third set but she failed to hold serve in the next game.
Mladenovic finished winning 87 percent of her first-serve points, and that number saved her because she lost 65 percent of second-serve points to Sharapova.
In the end the margins were very thin and Sharapova’s lack of big (or any) match experience of recent certainly hurt her in critical moments.
The Russian will head to Madrid with a ranking somewhere in the high 200s.
Mladenovic will move on to face Laura Seigemund in the final. The German reached her second consecutive final at Stuttgart by taking out Simona Halep. 6-4, 7-5. The German now owns eight career Top 10 wins and six of them have come at Stuttgart in the last two season.
“I just tried to fight, and yeah, it paid off,” Mladenovic said. “We all know that she has a long career behind her back, she has a lot of experience. I’m just so excited to be in the final.”