Serena Williams Beats Maria Sharapova in Australian Open Final

MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams thought she had finished off this Australian Open final with an ace only to discover shortly after the adrenaline rush that her bolt of a first serve into the corner had, in fact, been a let.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is it and I did it and I dropped my racket and I was ready for glory, only to hear let,” she said in an interview with Australian television after the match.

Williams put her hands on her hips, returned to the service line, bounced the ball a few times and proceeded to hit another ace in exactly the same corner.

This time, the celebration for Grand Slam singles title No. 19 could begin in earnest after a polite handshake at the net and a smile for Maria Sharapova.

Once more, Sharapova, the No. 2 seed, gave all she had against Williams, but her desire, baseline power and gutsy serving in the second set could not avert a 16th straight defeat to the No. 1 Williams.

This 6-3, 7-6 (5) victory gave Williams a sixth Australian Open singles title, but she had to wait five years for it and had to fight through a severe cold this year that left her occasionally coughing between returns and serves in this final. She said she vomited when she left the court during a rain delay in the first set.

But as Williams pointed out in her emotional victory speech, she has overcome a great deal more than that in her 33 years and is now tied for third on the all-time list of Grand Slam singles champions with 19 titles.

“Growing up,” she told the crowd in Rod Laver Arena, “I wasn’t the richest. But I had a rich family in spirit and support and standing here with 19 championships is something I never thought would happen.”

Williams, already the oldest woman to reach the Australian Open singles final in the Open era, is now the oldest woman to win the singles title in the Open era: ahead of Li Na, the Chinese star who won it last year at age 31.

Li is now retired, as are so many of Williams’s former rivals, but she powers on, having reinvigorated her career under French coach Patrick Mouratoglou.

“You really believed in me,” she said to Mouratoglou about this tournament. “There were moments I didn’t believe in me, but you did. I’m so grateful to have you in my life and on my team.”

With 19 major singles titles, Williams is now tied with Helen Wills Moody on the all-time list behind Margaret Court with 24 and Steffi Graf with 22. But Saturday’s victory — which came after one of the best matches in Sharapova’s and Williams’s long, lopsided non-rivalry – broke her tie for grand slams with Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, two of the greatest American champions who were both in Melbourne on Saturday.

Evert was commentating on the match for ESPN. Navratilova presented Williams with the winner’s trophy on court as Sharapova looked on, composed but deflated. Again.

Sharapova has won all four of the Grand Slam singles titles, coming back from major shoulder problems on two occasions. But despite her innate competitiveness and her self-improvement streak, she has been unable to come up with a solution to Williams.

She last defeated her in 2004 and has won just one set in their last 12 matches. Over all, she trails 2-17, but she remains a gracious loser.

“I haven’t beaten her in a really long time, but I love every time I step on the court to play against her, because she’s been the best and as a tennis player you want to play the best,” Sharapova said in her post-match remarks on court.

It is not only Williams’s power that makes her remarkable, but her staying power. She won her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999 at age 17 at the United States Open.

Nearly 16 years later, she is still winning them.

Her serve is her most devastating weapon, and it made the difference again on Saturday as she hit 18 aces and won 84 percent of the points when she put her first serve in play.

Sharapova was able to make significant inroads when she got to face a second serve, winning 62 percent of the points. But on the critical points, Williams rarely gave her a second serve to attack.

In the opening set, with Williams serving at 3-2, play was stopped at 30-all because of light rain and there was a 12-minute delay as organizers closed the roof and turned this final into an indoor match.

Williams left the court in visible distress and said she vomited during the break, which she said provided considerable relief. She returned to the court, coughed and then, with no warm-up, nailed an ace down the T to get to 40-30. She then won the next point with a forehand winner.

Meanwhile, Sharapova struggled to hold her own serve and was broken three times in the match, finishing with five aces and four double faults. It required several great escapes for her to reach the tiebreaker in the second set. Serving at 4-5, she saved a championship point with a full-swinging forehand winner down the line that landed in the corner.

Williams applauded the shot without making eye contact and Sharapova, who already had saved two match points in the second round of this tournament, went on to hold serve to 5-all.

She saved a second championship point on Saturday at 4-6 in the tiebreaker with a bold second serve that Williams had to lunge to return. Sharapova then nailed another forehand into the corner that Williams parried into the net.

But now it was Williams turn to step up and hit a serve for the match and though she had to hit the same unreturnable serve twice, she eventually got her reward and was soon jumping with delight.

“I wasn’t going to just let her hit a winner to win the match,” Sharapova said of the championship points she saved earlier. “I wanted to go for it and do everything I could to stay in those games and in that match. On the last one, I couldn’t do much to get that ball.”

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