Women's Final

I really shouldn't feel bad for Maria Shrapova, she is the highest paid female athlete on the planet, she is a brand that is known around the world and will be collecting million dollar endorsement deals well after her tennis career ends. She is engaged to a NBA player (kind of) and has won three career majors, most notably when as a 17 year old she stunned Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon finals. She is not Anna Kournikova, the model who moonlighted as a tennis player and never won a tournament. She is a major champion whose on court mental toughness exceeds most male professional athletes in any sport.

Even after saying all that it is hard to watch her get so close to a major title after shoulder surgery and come up short. The tennis court is the coldest place of all sporting venues, there are no teammates to help you out and no coaches or corner men to throw in the towel for you. When you don't have it on the tennis court there is no place to hide. What other sport makes the runner up stay on court after losing? Can you imagine Stuart Scott interviewing Lebron on court as the Mav's were celebrating? Sharapova has been playing well lately despite of her serve, she was forced to re-work her serve mechanics after rotator cuff surgery and currently is a coin flip to find the service box. She made it to Wimbledon finals after a straight set semifinal win during which she served 13 double faults, which is like winning the NFC title with Rex Grossman as your QB. Her serving woes put pressure on the rest of her game that is almost unfair, like a pitcher only being allowed to throw fastballs. Watching her miss four consecutive serves to lose a service game is like watching a pitcher walk in four straight without the manager going to the pen. Sharapova's competitive streak is legendary and it is the major reason she has fought so hard to make it back from shoulder surgery and what allows her to win most matches without a serve. Unlike Federer, watching Sharpova you can see how much it means to her and that makes it that much harder to see Sharapova come up just short and is the reason I find myself feeling for her every time she begins her serve.

Maybe Petra Kvitova will go on to a legendary career and win Wimbledon multiple times and we will look back at this year's final as the start of something special (NBC is trying their best to make us think that), but most likely it be remembered for Sharapova's inability to serve overcoming her ultra competitiveness. Most of the times in sports the storybook ending doesn't come true, if this was a movie script Sharapova would have beaten Kvitova and regained her place as the greatest major threat of this era not named Williams. Instead, Sharapova will have to look to the hard court season to improve her serve and womens tennis has another underwhelming major champion and less of a storyline moving forward than a USA drama.