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NEW YORK - Maria Sharapova surely will be feeling pretty Saturday night in her black Audrey Hepburn-inspired cocktail dress, silver sneakers and dangling earrings. She will stride through her posh Manhattan hotel as she does in her television commercial, racket bag slung over her shoulder, and make her way to Flushing Meadows, where onlookers will gawk and take photos of tennis' richest cover girl.
For the first time in two years, the occasion will be worthy of the hype and the glitz.
Sharapova on Friday reached Saturday night's U.S. Open women's final with a 6-0, 4-6, 6-0 victory over top-ranked Amelie Mauresmo, who suffered the second-worst meltdown of the day. Sharapova is in her first Grand Slam final since she won the 2004 Wimbledon title as a 17-year-old known mainly for her ear-piercing shrieks. She had gone 0-5 in major semifinals since.
Jelena Jankovic, the bubbly Serb and least-experienced of Friday's semifinalists, self-destructed even worse than Mauresmo. She took a set and a 4-2 lead over Justine Henin-Hardenne, argued with chair umpire Enric Molina about a serve called out, lost her concentration, double-faulted on game point and dropped the final 10 games of the match.
RARE FEAT
Henin-Hardenne, the No. 2 seed, won 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 and became the first woman to reach all four Grand Slam finals in a season since Martina Hingis did it in 1997. She did it despite double-faulting 12 times in the first two sets.
I was really mad because I lost that second set,'' Jankovic said.I lost my concentration with the umpire, and then with her. She was saying, `Oh, I have pain in my back mimicking Henin-Hardenne, I can't do this or that,' and then when she started winning, she starts playing so good, serving 120 miles per hour, and everything changed. For me, that's not quite fair play. If you really have pain, you have pain when you're winning as well.''
In the end, Jankovic said, she has nobody to blame but herself. She gets advice via e-mail from mentor and fellow Serbian Monica Seles, but there were no pearls of wisdom about how to deal with an opponent whom you feel is engaging in gamesmanship. Henin-Hardenne has been accused of that in the past as well.
I can't say if she was faking or not, but it's my fault I was looking at her,'' Jankovic said.I shouldn't have even looked at her. I should continue to play my game and finish off the second set. I don't blame her. I lost this match and it's my fault. I'm young and I'll learn from this mistake.''
Henin-Hardenne said she did, in fact, have back pain that affected her serve.
It's something pretty painful, and it's not easy to play with the pain,'' she said.But then I couldn't think more about this injury, and I just felt much better. I was feeling free and playing my game in the third set.''
NEVER COMFORTABLE
Mauresmo's third-set crumbling was even more surprising. She entered the semifinal as the favorite. She had beaten Sharapova in all three of their previous matches, and won the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year. But Sharapova imposed her pace early, and Mauresmo never got comfortable.
All the credit to Maria,'' Mauresmo said.She played a good match and I didn't. Even when I won the second set, I didn't really feel things were going my way. But that's the way it is.''
Sharapova said the difference was that she made better decisions than she had in the past against Mauresmo.
``I thought I played really smart, wasn't making errors at the wrong times,'' Sharapova said.
The 19-year-old Russian admitted she put pressure on herself after winning Wimbledon two summers ago. It was compounded by the fact that she immediately became one of the most endorsed female athletes in the world, with deals that total more $18 million.
I won a Grand Slam and I beat some top players, and after the first few months, I felt like I needed to win every single match,'' Sharapova said.I just needed to step back and tell myself, `That's not going to happen. No matter how hard or how much you want it, it's just not going to exist.' ''
Sharapova left the stadium Friday in a T-shirt that read: ``I Feel Pretty When I Grunt.'' If she wins Saturday night, she'll be feeling pretty rich.
The winner takes home $1.2 million.
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(c) 2006, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
