Serena Williams kept rolling in the French Open on Saturday, right into post-match media inquiries about past spats and her rivalry with Maria Sharapova, which will be renewed Monday.
A reporter from Inside Tennis managed to bring President Trump into the mix, with the president once saying Williams had been “intimidated” by Sharapova’s “supermodel looks.”
Williams was having nothing to do with that, saying she has not been intimidated by anyone.
Welcome to Williams-Sharapova, 2018.
The history books show that Williams has been dominant against Sharapova, holding a 19-2 record with only four matches going to three sets. For these two, though, there are always other matters. Like the book. The baby. The drug suspension. The old comments about boyfriends. Over the weekend, after they had advanced to a fourth-round French Open matchup against each other, Williams was asked about that book, the one written by Sharapova. Among other things in “Unstoppable: My Life So Far,” which was published last year, Sharapova wrote that Williams had sobbed after losing the 2004 Wimbledon final to her and claimed that Williams had promised she would never lose to that “little b—-” again.
On Saturday, Williams called the idea that she had been in tears after a loss normal and added, “I didn’t expect to be reading a book about me that wasn’t necessarily true.”
The two women have not faced each other since the 2016 Australian Open quarterfinals. Since then, Sharapova has served a 15-month suspension for using a banned substance and Williams has not played in a Grand Slam tournament since the 2017 Australian Open because she had a baby last September.
Williams, who is unseeded in the French Open and ranked 451st in the world, said she had bore no ill will toward Sharapova, the 28th seed and 30th-ranked player in the world. “Especially having a daughter, I feel like negativity is taught,” she said. “I feel like women, especially, should bring each other up.
“A lot of people always assume that I feel a different way and it’s not true. If anything, I feel like we should encourage each other, and the success of one female should be the inspiration to another, and I have said that a thousand times. So for me, I always get inspired by other women that are doing well.”
Williams downplayed the match, saying that Sharapova probably should be favored. “She’s been playing for over a year now. I just started. So I’m just really trying to get my bearings and trying to feel out where I am and see where I can go. I think this will be another test. I think this is just one of her best surfaces, and she always does really, really well here. So this would be a good opportunity for me kind of to see where I am and just hopefully continue to go forward.”
Perhaps, but Sharapova has lost 18 times in a row to Williams. “I think there are a lot of things in Serena’s game that she’s done much better than I have,” Sharapova told reporters. “Numbers don’t lie.”
Five years ago, the two exchanged cutting remarks over rumors about whom they were dating five years. That’s how badly their relationship had deteriorated. Still, so much has happened since then. “I think, to some extent, we have driven each other. Maybe that’s better than being friends. Maybe that’s what it takes to fire up the proper fury,” Sharapova said. “Only when you have that intense antagonism can you find the strength to finish her off. But who knows? Someday, when all this is in our past, maybe we’ll become friends. Or not. You never can tell.”
First, let’s see what happens Monday.
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