Tennis stars feel the New York heat

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004 | 10:48 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORT

NEW YORK -- As the reigning Wimbledon champion, Maria Sharapova is learning to deal with a higher profile and greater expectations.

Life has been a whirlwind for her since July, when at age 17, she buzzed through Wimbledon like a tornado, wiping out Serena Williams in straight sets to win the championship. Sharapova's surprising triumph, and her tall, striking presence, made her tennis's favorite summer flavor.

But between the glamour photo shoots and the talk shows, her game since Wimbledon has not been up to standard. She was upset in the second round of last week's Pilot Pen tournament, and she was nearly upset again during Tuesday night's opening-round match of the U.S. Open.

Outlasting a stubborn opponent, Laura Granville, Sharapova barely prevailed, 6-3, 5-7, 7-5, and she will clearly have to raise her level of play to advance into the deeper reaches of this tournament.

She wasn't the only top player pushed to the limit on Day 2 at Flushing Meadows: 2000 Open winner Marat Safin and 11th-seeded Rainer Schuettler lost, while 2003 runner-up Juan Carlos Ferrero and No. 5 Tim Henman both needed five sets to win.

Safin, Schuettler and Ferrero were put in the same quarter of the draw as 2003 champion Andy Roddick, who followed Sharapova in Arthur Ashe Stadium and broke the Open record with a 152 mph serve in a 6-0, 6-2, 6-2 victory against Scoville Jenkins.

And 11th-seeded Venus Williams avoided a third set against Petra Mandula by winning a second-set tiebreaker and advancing with a 6-3, 7-6 (3) win against the world's 64th-ranked player.

Ranked No. 68 in the world, Granville had a solid game plan, hitting to Sharapova's backhand and inducing long rallies, patiently waiting for Sharapova to make mistakes. And Sharapova made plenty of them, expending energy she may need as the tournament progresses.

But Sharapova has grit to go along with talent. She displayed that trait at Wimbledon, and she needed it to defeat Granville, a 23-year-old native of Chicago who learned something about Sharapova in two previous losses to her.

With Granville leading by 5-4 in the third set, Sharapova had to hold serve just to keep the match going. She did, evening the set at 5-5.

At that point, perhaps Granville became unnerved, sensing what she was on the verge of doing. Two unforced errors in the next game put her down, 0-30, then Sharapova hit a powerful forehand into the deep corner that Granville couldn't return. That gave Sharapova a triple-break point, and she didn't waste time, hitting a backhand winner on the next point to take the lead, 6-5.

Sharapova closed out the match in the next game, hitting her 10th ace to go up, 40-15, then hitting another big serve that Granville barely got a piece of. The test was over and Sharapova had passed, moving on to a second-round match against Jelena Jankovic.

"It was a very tough match and I had to battle all the way," she said. "I had to gut it out. She just started to pick up her game. She hit some balls so deep. My game went off for a while. I went to La-La Land."

Yet when it mattered most, Sharapova found an extra gear.

The third set was a test of wills. After the emotional downer of losing the second set, Sharapova immediately bounced back, breaking Granville's serve in the first game of the final set. But instead of seizing the momentum, Sharapova gave it back, allowing Granville to break back in the next game.

It was the kind of resistance Sharapova can expect from now on. Her Wimbledon victory has made her a target, and instead of intimidating opponents, it seems to have has inspired them. Call it part of the learning process for a gifted player who won a Grand Slam title before she was old enough to vote.

This is Sharapova's first Grand Slam event since winning Wimbledon, and she did not make the kind of opening statement she had planned. With Justine Henin-Hardenne, Amelie Mauresmo, Serena Williams, Anastasia Myskina, Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati and Venus Williams all looking more impressive than Sharapova in their first-round matches, a Sharapova championship here would be even more astounding than her triumph at Wimbledon.