PARIS: Serena Williams blitzed hapless Sara Errani 6-0, 6-1 in just 46 minutes yesterday to reach her second French Open final where she’ll face defending champion Maria Sharapova for the title.
The American top seed, who won her only Roland Garros crown on her last final appearance in 2002, will be playing in her 20th career Grand Slam championship showdown after stretching her current winning streak to 30 matches.
Williams, at 1.75m and 70kg, was just too powerful for Errani, the runner-up in 2012, but whose slight stature of 1.64m and 60kg, was never going to intimidate the American.
Williams blasted 40 winners to Errani’s two while the Italian won just five points on the American’s serve.
“I told myself: ‘Serena, just concentrate’ and that’s what I did,” said Williams, who had been pushed to three sets and almost two hours by quarterfinal opponent Svetlana Kuznetsova.
“Against Maria, I will have to prepare slightly differently. She’s a great player. But it’s magnificent to be back in the final after 11 years.” The 31-year-old will start tomorrow’s final as the comfortable favorite as she holds a 13-2 career lead over Sharapova with the Russian’s last triumph coming nine years ago The world No.1 raced through the first set yesterday in just 21 minutes, firing 18 winners past the Italian fifth seed and allowing her opponent a meager two points on serve.
It wasn’t all raw power, however, with the top seed winning one point in sixth game of the opening set with a sweet, backhand volley hit from almost behind her.
With Errani, who had lost all of her five previous meetings with the 15-time Grand Slam title winner, was playing with a bandaged right thigh and her hopes continued to sink.
The 26-year-old from Bologna was quickly 3-0 down in the second set, before she finally got on the scoreboard in the fourth game.
It was only a brief pause in the onslaught as Williams sent down another love game for 4-1 and then broke for the fifth time to stretch out to 5-1.
Errani was put out of her misery in the seventh game when Williams clinched victory on her fifth ace of the tie.
Grueling test
Sharapova survived a grueling test to reach the final for the second straight year yesterday with a 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 defeat of Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka.
In a disjointed match opposing two of the biggest hitters in women’s tennis, the defending champion opened the semifinal in style, then lost her way for a set and finally, on the back of a brief rain delay, resumed control.
Azarenka, bidding to become the first woman since Jennifer Capriati in 2001 to win the Australian and French Opens in the same year, can count herself unlucky to have seen her momentum halted by the rain, but Sharapova was marginally the better player.
“I really had to play to the end today and I am extremely happy to be back in the final,” said Sharapova.
“(The rain delay) gave me a little bit of time to think of what I did well in the first set and try to get that back again for the third.” As she did against Jelena Jankovic in the quarterfinals, Sharapova got off to a miserable start, two double faults leading to a dropped serve in the first game.
But, unlike in her match against the Serb, the Russian quickly regrouped and rattled off four games in a row, getting the better of Azarenka in a bruising sequence of baseline exchanges.
The Australian Open champion looked perplexed and tried switching things up with a couple of dashes to the net, but on each occasion Sharapova belted a passing shot past her with ease.
