The rivalry of American tennis player Serena Williams and Russian Maria Sharapova is now getting more interesting with Sharapova attaining the top two spot in the rankings after winning the recently concluded China Open in Beijing.
Serena Williams is on top of her a-game being ranked top one of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) with 8,645 points in total. But with Maria Sharapova winning the recent China open made her the top two in the rankings with 6,680 points.
Sharapova beat Petra Kvitova in the recent China open with a final score of 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. It was a hard fought match with Maria taking the first set while Petra took the second set to force for a final decisive set which Sharapova won.
Although it seems that Sharapova needs to win more tournaments to get the top spot it's actually easier for her to do so. This is because Serena needs to win the final tournament of the year she will lose around 1,500 points meanwhile Sharapova doesn't need to defend anything at all and just needs to rack up more points from winning various tournaments before the season ends. If this scenario does play out we are looking at less than 500 points difference between the two tennis players.
Serena has held the top one rank of the WTA since February 2013 which means that she is definitely a very strong and talented athlete. Unfortunately for Sharapova, she had a shoulder injury that year and was forced not to compete the entire season. Not to mention that at the start of the 2014 season, Sharapova had a rough start by not being able to get to the finals of various tournaments in the first few months.
Fans of Serena Williams are also worried since she withdrew from the China open because of a knee injury. In an article by CRI, Serena says, "So as a defending champion, you always want to do your best to defend your title. So more than anything, it's extremely frustrating. You know, I wanted to be here. To come all this way and not to take the title, it's just a waste."
Join the Conversation