A Teen’s Dream Victory

With poise and power, with guts and a grin, with the fight of a champion and aim of an archer, Maria Sharapova dissected the tennis game of Serena Williams in a decisive way no one else had done.

From the first point until the last, with the forehand her opponents used to pick on as a weakness, to the serve that caressed corners, Sharapova kept the two-time defending champion hitting off her back foot, running the wrong way, stumbling and tumbling to the ground in a futile chase for balls hit too hard and too well.

Sharapova, a 17-year-old from Siberia by way of the Nick Bolletieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and South Bay Tennis Center in Torrance, handed Williams, 22, a good, old-fashioned drubbing on Centre Court in the Wimbledon final Saturday. The score was 6-1, 6-4 and at the end, the 13th-seeded Sharapova ran into the stands to bury her head in her father’s shoulder.

It was a record-setting day for the teenager. She became the first Russian to win a Wimbledon singles title. She is the third-youngest women’s champion (second youngest after 16-year-old Martina Hingis in the open era). She is the lowest-seeded women’s Wimbledon winner.

When the Duke of Kent presented Sharapova with the Venus Rosewater dish, which is traditionally held up to the fans by the winner, Sharapova turned to Williams, who had put her arm around Sharapova at the net, and said, “I have to take this trophy from you for one year. I’m sorry. I’m sure we’re going to be here one more time and hopefully many more times in other Grand Slams and fight for the trophy.”

She has told her story so often these last two weeks -- a life in Siberia disrupted by the Chernoybl nuclear disaster, a family uprooted to the United States with $700 and a dream that their hard-working little daughter might learn more about tennis while being shepherded by eager handlers from the IMG management company -- that she had begun asking reporters to check the transcripts rather than ask the same questions. But the story is compelling and Sharapova’s rise has been meteoric.

Like many of the parade of young tennis stars -- Jennifer Capriati, Monica Seles, Venus and Serena Williams -- the 6-foot Sharapova has developed a blasting game of power tennis from the backcourt. But she also has enviable poise, the looks to have earned a modeling contract and a will to fight that one of her coaches, Robert Lansdorp, calls “unteachable.”

Lansdorp has given a strong base of fundamentals to five Grand Slam champions now -- Tracy Austin, Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport, Anastasia Myskina and Sharapova. He said her father, Yuri, had seen Davenport win the 1998 U.S. Open and wanted his daughter to hit her groundstrokes with the same easy pace and depth.

Soon Yuri and Maria were traveling to Torrance, living in extended-stay hotels so that Maria could hit thousands of balls under the eyes of Lansdorp.

She was 11 and Lansdorp discovered two things. This girl would look him square in the eyes and stare daggers through him if she was either unhappy or interested.

And, Lansdorp said, “She was always a money player in my eyes. She didn’t like the repetition of practice. So one day I said, ‘I’ll give you 10 bucks if you can hit the target.’ All of a sudden she was trying so hard. She has the record of forehands, hitting the target eight of 10 times. She’s so proud of that fact.”

Sharapova hit all the targets Saturday. She moved Williams everywhere. Forward and back. Side to side. Williams had been determined to volley sometimes, but twice Sharapova froze her at the net with lazy lobs that drifted over Williams’ racket to land on the baseline.

Lansdorp, who watched the match on television in Southern California, said he was impressed with how Sharapova was the aggressor from the start of the match. “I really think,” Lansdorp said, “that with the pace of the ball Maria hit and with the depth, she put Serena in an uncomfortable zone.”

There was one moment it seemed Williams might crawl back in the match.

In the sixth game of the second set, and for the first and only time, Williams broke Sharapova’s serve to take a 4-2 lead. Williams threw back her head and yelled exultantly, but in the next game, with stunning suddenness, Sharapova got the break back when Williams could win only one point on her own serve.

And in the ninth game of the set, facing a break point yet again, Williams hit a big, heavy serve. Sharapova managed only a weak return and the ball sat up begging for Williams to crush it. But Williams slipped on the wet grass and fell. She couldn’t make the shot and one game later Sharapova easily served out the match without a hint of rookie nerves.

Williams was gracious afterward. “I was really happy for her,” Williams said. “I know that feeling and that moment. There’s no better feeling than that.”

The women’s tour has been in need of this sort of breakthrough player. Serena and Venus missed much of last year with injuries and in the mourning over the death of their half sister. Their big rivals, Belgian countrywomen Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters, didn’t play the French Open or Wimbledon because of their own health and injury issues.

“It’s great to see a new star emerge,” WTA Tour Chairman Larry Scott said. “Maria adds a whole new dimension to the rivalries at the top of the tour.”

Williams, who has been criticized for focusing more on her acting and clothing design careers than tennis, said she hated losing her title. “I’m going to triple my efforts and do everything I can to play better next time,” she said.

Martina Navratilova, who had noticed Sharapova at a tennis camp more than a decade ago, said, “It’s the best thing that could have happened to us, really. Obviously it’s great for her, but it’s great for women’s tennis.”

Friday evening, Sharapova had developed a sore throat. It felt so bad she cried. “I thought I was going to get sick,” she said. “I mean, a Wimbledon final, I was absolutely in tears.”

By Saturday night, all she wanted was to feel better and fly home to celebrate with her mother. Yelena doesn’t often travel with her daughter, so before Sharapova received her victory plate, Yuri tossed a cellphone onto the court. Sharapova couldn’t get the phone to work. Technology may have failed. Sharapova didn’t.

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BOX SCORE

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WOMEN’S FINAL

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*--* Maria Sharapova (13) d. Serena Williams (1), 6-1, 6-4 Category Sharapova Williams First-serve percentage 61 61 Aces 2 3 Double faults 4 1 Unforced errors 11 10 First-serve winning pct. 64 61 Second-serve winning pct. 60 43 Winners (including service) 17 14 Break points 4-10 1-6 Net points 4-4 3-9 Total points won 65 53 Time of match 1:13

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