Sharapova fares well in a goodbye

CARLSBAD -- There is no place for quaint in sports, not even tennis.

There is no place for a little women’s tournament to be tucked away in a crowded resort. Even if the players were happy to stroll from their room to the spa or to a courtesy golf cart, to sip drinks on the terrace and say hi to the fans.

Tennis wants to grow, away from a 6,500-seat court at La Costa Resort and Spa to a 10,000-seat stadium in Carson or Cincinnati or Beijing. So it was farewell to the Acura Classic on Sunday. “It’s sad to say goodbye,” Maria Sharapova said.

Sharapova wore a little black-and-white dress and old-fashioned, dangling black earrings. But she won the final edition of the tournament the new-fashioned way.

Her screeching power sent 11th-seeded Patty Schnyder back on her heels and onto the sidelines as the runner-up. Sharapova finished off a 6-2, 3-6, 6-0 win by allowing Schnyder only 17 points in the third set. Sharapova described her favorite shot -- a running backhand that hissed through the air and clipped the line to hold serve in the sixth game of the first set -- as “sick.”

That is what grabs the senses -- bigger and noisier.

For Sharapova it was her first title of the year. She is the first woman since Venus Williams in 2002 to defend a championship here. The second-ranked player in the world also won $196,600 and an SUV from the sponsoring auto manufacturer. The entire amount of prize money for all the players when Debbie Spence won the first incarnation of this event in 1984 was $50,000

Schnyder, a 28-year-old veteran from Switzerland, said what most players feel.

“We all talk,” she said, “and this is just a great week, a nice atmosphere, staying at the resort, walking to the court. And such great fans, they come out even for Saturday qualifying at 10 a.m. I would love to come back here for sure. Too bad.”

The rights to this event were sold to promoters in Beijing and it will become a Tier I tournament in the fall of 2008. The Cincinnati tournament that has been a smaller Tier III event earlier in the summer will now become a Tier I and be part of the U.S. Open Series. The WTA tour’s popular California swing will drop from three weeks to two -- in Stanford and Carson.

Tour director Larry Scott was diplomatic. It was the decision of tournament owners Raquel Giscafre and Jane Stratton, who had built the tournament from nothing, to sell the tournament’s rights, Scott said. Giscafre and Stratton were teary-eyed at a farewell brunch and gracious after the final match, accepting awards from former champions Spence, Jennifer Capriati and Conchita Martinez.

But in between the ceremonies and farewells, Sharapova delivered a performance she hopes mirrors her 2006 summer -- after she won here, she also won her first U.S. Open title.

After Sharapova scampered through the first set in 38 minutes, though, she lost her concentration and her way, she said. Sharapova’s serve was broken in the fourth game when she buried a high forehand in the net and again in the eighth game when she was careless with an easy forehand volley.

During the changeover before the third set, Sharapova called her co-coach Michael Joyce to the court. He told her she needed to quit being tentative and to step into those volleys. It was advice Sharapova had already given herself.

“It was really obvious,” she said. “He said, ‘Step in, don’t hesitate.’ That’s pretty much it. I knew my concentration went down and I got a little sloppy.”

Sharapova is scheduled to play in this week’s event at the Home Depot Center. Her sometimes-achy right shoulder feels good, she said. “I hope to maintain my physical level, find a way to be fresh next week, then just see how it goes.”

How she wants it to go is easy to know. Sharapova wants to defend another title well, the big one in New York.

diane.pucin@latimes.com