When the last of Sabine Lisicki’s errant forehands flew long, Maria Sharapova merely clenched her fist in quiet satisfaction. It was the most muted the ‘queen of scream’ had been all afternoon.
Her public appeared similarly underwhelmed, raising little more than a ripple of acclaim as the Russian reached her second Wimbledon final with a minimum of fuss. They understood that the distance between the Marias of 2004 and 2011 was measured in more than years.
The fragile-looking beauty who had the country in her thrall seven years ago has long been supplanted by a globe-girdling businesswoman of fearsome resolve and Croesan wealth. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but do not suppose the reinvention conditions Centre Court’s crowd to muster quite the same warmth.
To be fair, it had not been a match to leave many in raptures, either. Sharapova's vital statistics — that would be 13 double faults, including two in succession as she battled to break Lisicki’s defence — were not exactly worthy of a putative double champion.
Sharapova, who earned £30,000 less than men’s champion Roger Federer for her triumph in 2004, has served as a consistent advocate for equal pay at grand slams, claiming that there is nothing to separate the entertainment value of the men and women’s games. It looked an argument of dubious merit after an occasion to showcase, again, the alarming dearth of headline quality at the heart of women’s tennis.
Sharapova’s serving was lamentable, redeemed only by the reliable power of her groundstrokes. She was carried to victory largely on the fact that Lisicki played even worse, having plainly been extended a round too far by her run to the last four as a wild card. The German’s fate was stamped by a grisly sequence of 10 games, during which she won only one.
