A year ago Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova competed in the final of Roland Garros, but there will be no repeat of last year’s final in 2014.
Top seed Williams has been drawn in the same quarter-final stage pool as the seventh seeded Sharapova.
The Russian – the 2012 French Open champion – has been playing well on clay after struggling to find her form in the early part of the season.
Sharapova was the two-time defending champion in Stuttgart and she was able to defend the title for the second consecutive time beating Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic in the final.
Sharapova was also able to triumph in the Mutua Madrid Open, the second-biggest tournament on clay after the French Open. Despite losing to Ivanovic in Rome, Sharapova should regain her confidence and momentum for this year’s second grand slam. Without a doubt the Russian is a main contender for the women’s trophy.
Serena Williams won the clay-court Grand Slam tournament in 2002, beating her older sister Venus in the final, and then waited 11 years to reclaim her second French Open trophy last year.
Williams has dominated the head-to-head record against Sharapova in the past. Serena has a 16-2 overpowering lead and she is 4-0 against the Russian on clay. Their recent meeting on clay was the French Open final last year where Serena triumphed 6-4, 6-4. Williams lost to Virginie Razzano in the opening round of 2012 French Open. Since then she hasn’t lost to anyone on red clay.
Tennis fans will probably get to witness another exciting match between these two main contenders – unfortunately not in the final but in quarter finals.
Sharapova’s path to quarters is blocked by ninth seed Dominika Cibulkova, the woman who upset Sharapova at the Australian Open this year. Cibulkova also defeated the Russian in the 2009 French Open, where the Slovak only allowed Sharapova two games on the score board.
Serena might face her sister Venus in Round 3, which would be their earliest meeting at a Grand Slam tournament since their very first match-up in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open. Sabine Lisicki, the player who upset Serena last year at Wimbledon could await in Round of 16 as well.
Amila Bandara
Roar Rookie
Currently Halep has won only one match at Roland Garros. It is exciting to see how she does this year. Radwanska just won her opening round match. It is hard to consider the Pole as a title contender this year. Radwanska has choked couple of times when she had the Grand Slam on her hand. Notably at Wimbledon last year and Australian Open this year where she was the clear favourite to win when all the contenders faltered before semi finals. But surprisingly she lost those two semis to players that she should have defeated. Right now her form on clay is questionable and apparently she is not comfortable on clay as on hard and grass surfaces. So it is hard to put Radwanska into the title contender's group for clay court grand slam. To be honest Serena and Sharapova are the first two contenders for the title. But as I mentioned in my article above one of them will lose before semis - most likely the Russian. If Li Na fails in an early round, l it is exciting to see who goes to the final from the bottom half. If Ana Ivanovic can pick up where she left off, she must be the one to reach the final. Halep might block Ana's path to the final for sure. There are plenty more potential players to enter the final from bottom half too apart from the trio I mentioned. Errani. Jankovic, Kvitova and perhaps Kuznetsova too. Thus the bottom half is clearly open with both Serena and Sharapova (along with Radwanska too) are in the top half of the draw.
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Roar Guru
What you could have also mentioned is that Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer, last year's men's finalists, could also meet in the quarter-finals this year. Sharapova's current losing run against Serena doesn't look like ending anytime soon, since the Russian last beat Williams all the way back at the 2004 WTA Tour Championships, she has won only three out of a possible 30 sets (a rate of 10% or one in ten sets) against Williams. If they do meet in the quarter-finals as projected, then Sharapova could drop out of the top ten. It should also be noted that Sharapova won RG in 2012 and the Australian Open in 2008 with Serena out of the way. In the former, they would have met in the quarters but Serena shockingly lost in round one, and at the latter, they were due for a semi-final meeting (a year after Serena famously crushed her in the 07 final) but the American lost to Jelena Jankovic in straights. Serena is my favourite for the crown, second is Li Na and third is probably Halep or Radwanska. Will be an interesting tournament.