- The Observer
20 25.08.19 Tennis
US Open
In brief
Boxing
Ruiz aiming to ‘end
Joshua’s career’
Andy Ruiz Jr has pledged to end
Anthony Joshua’s career after
confi rming for the fi rst time that
he will contest the rematch in
Saudi Arabia. The 29-year-old, who
was born in the US but fi ghts for
Mexico, shocked the heavyweight
division in New York in June when
he infl icted a fi rst defeat on Joshua
to win the WBA, IBF, WBO and
IBO world titles. Ruiz is set to face
the Briton again on 7 December
in Diriyah – a fi ght announced
by Joshua’s camp this month but
not confi rmed by Ruiz until now.
Yesterday he posted on Instagram:
“I’m excited to announce my
rematch with Anthony Joshua ...
I am grateful to Saudi Arabia for
inviting me. I took it to AJ in The Big
Apple and I’m looking forward to
ending his career in the Desert.” PA
MotoGP
M árquez starts from
front at Silverstone
The w orld champion, Marc
M árquez, smashed the lap
record to clinch pole position
in qualifying for today’s British
Grand Prix. Honda’s championship
leader posted his best lap of
1min 58.168sec at Silverstone and
fi nished 0.428 faster than Valentino
Rossi, who took second spot on a
Yamaha. Rossi matched his best
qualifying effort of the season in
Austin, while the Australian Jack
Miller fi nished third-quickest on a
Primac Ducati. Fabio Quartararo,
who set the earlier lap record
during third practice session, took
fourth spot and will be joined by
Á lex Rins and Maverick Vi ñales on
the second row. Reuters
Cycling
Team Wiggins to fold
at end of season
Team Wiggins, the road racing
team founded by the 2012 Tour
de France winner, Sir Bradley
Wiggins, will disband at the end of
this year, saying yesterday it will
not be “operating in 2020”. The
team nurtured Owain Doull and
Chris Lawless, who are now part of
Team Ineos.
Marc Márquez pushes his Honda
hard to break Silverstone’s lap record
and clinch pole for today’s race
Williams and Sharapova
put 15-year feud on line
If Serena Williams really did say of
Maria Sharapova in the Wimbledon
locker room in tearful defeat 15
years ago, “I will never lose to
that little bitch again”, she was
wrong but she set in train the most
impassioned and complex rivalry
in tennis.
When it reaches its latest and
probably fi nal peak – in the fi rst
round of the US Open on Monday
night – the 22nd match scheduled
between the emotional American
and the ice-cold Russian might lack
the fi re and quality of the past but
it will be none the less enthralling
for that.
The match between the former
champions, each of them fi ghting
late-career ennui, is a gift of a
quirky draw. Even a few years ago
it would have been a fi nal, however
predictable the result. Now it is a
history lesson. Sharapova turned
32 in April. Williams is 38 next
month. It is the sporting feud that,
statistically, is anomalous. In the
heart and soul, however, there has
been none like it.
Williams did lose to Sharapova
on court again, of course. Once - in
their next match, blowing a one-set
lead in a Tour match in Los Angeles.
But she has beaten her in their 19
other completed matches – and then
withdrew injured when they were
due to meet in the fourth round of
the French Open last year. Victories
do not come more pyrrhic.
The little bitch of 2004 had
fl owered into a long, lean queen
of the court, owner of fi ve majors,
one of the sport’s most formidable
fi ghters – the greatest of them all,
according to John McEnroe. But she
surely must have been relieved that
Williams’s shoulder injury robbed
the American of the chance to add
to her rolling humiliation that day at
Roland Garros.
If Williams – who has had health
and injury issues in her trophyless
run since giving birth for the fi rst
time two Septembers ago and has
played a fi tful schedule – were to
withdr aw this time, it would suck
the air from the draw, the season
and the game. Fingers crossed.
Because this is more than a tennis
match. It is an event. If it were held
in Madison Square Garden 10 miles
away with gloves on, it could not
be more loaded with the prospect
of a knockout. As Roger Federer
remarked recently, there are nodraws in tennis. The nervous energy
and sense of expectation gathering
around it should light a fl ame under
the championships on day one – not
dissimilar to that which Sharapova
delivered on her comeback from
her 15-month drugs exile when, in a
sparkling outfi t that would not have
looked out of place on a Manhattan
catwalk, she beat the then world
No1, Simona Halep, in the fi rst
round here in 2017.
Sharapova, uncertain if she could
rediscover her grinding magic,
went on to win twice more, from
a set down against Timea Babos
and nervously in straights over
the American teenage wildcard
Sofi a Kenin, before the 16th seed,
Anastasiya Sevastova, stopped her
progress. Unseeded but adored by
sponsors and television, she had
performed only on the main court,under lights. But that redoubtable
run will fade in the memory if she
manages to beat her magnifi cent
tormentor. Whatever their
public show of civility – and there is
mutual professional respect, at least- those locker-room sentiments
after their fi rst meeting are barely
diluted.
The last time they exchanged
forehands was in Melbourne, when
Williams infl icted a ritual beating in
the quarter-fi nals. Sharapova failed
her drugs test then and soon would
disappear from the Tour.
In her 2017 autobiography,
Unstoppable: My Life So Far,
Sharapova revealed much.
“Serena and I should be friends;
we have the same passion,” she
said. “But we are not. I think, to
some extent, we have driven each
other. Maybe that’s what it takes.
Only when you have that intense
antagonism can you fi nd the
strength to fi nish her off. Who
knows? Some day, when all this is
in our past, maybe we’ll become
friends.”
Perhaps. It would be nice. But,
as Sharapova revealed in her book,
there is another reason for the
chill between them. After she beat
Williams at Wimbledon Sharapova
followed her into the locker room.
“What I heard when I came in
to the locker room was Serena
Williams bawling,” she wrote.
“Guttural sobs. I got out as quickly
as I could, but she knew I was there.”
The enmity was set in stone – and
not just because a skinny Russian
teenager had come from nowhere to
beat a great champion, as Sharapova
revealed.
“Mostly I think she hated me for
hearing her cry,” she recalled. “Not
long after the tournament, I heard
Serena told a friend – who then told
me – ‘I will never lose to that little
b**** again .’”
And here we are, one more time.
Williams, who needs another major
title to match Margaret Court’s
record of 24 majors, will dread
losing to Sharapova, whom she
beats for fun. That cloying fear of
failure will probably be enough
to get her the win but now the
assuredness is missing, from her
game and her tennis.
This year, Williams, ranked No 8
in the world, has played 29 matches
and won 22 of them, suffering
most recently in the Wimbledon
fi nal. Sharapova’s 2019 record is
considerably thinner: she is 87 in
the world, with an 8-7 log.
For once, form is irrelevant. Don’t
blink.
Sense of expectation
around fi rst-round
showdown will light
a fl ame under the
championships,
says Kevin Mitchell
Maria Sharapova has an
awful record against Serena
Williams but their US Open
battle will be more than a game
STARTRAKS PHOTO/SHUTTERSTOCK‘Serena and I
should be friends;
we have the same
passion. But we
are not. We have
driven each other’
Maria Sharapova