PARIS — It will be Serena Williams versus Maria Sharapova at a Grand Slam tournament on Monday, but don’t think that this will be business as usual. Despite playing little competitive tennis in the last 16 months, Williams may well win again. Just as she has won her last 18 matches against Sharapova, the only women’s player in this era who has rivaled Williams’s star power and earning power, yet has never rivaled her as a champion. But Williams’s and Sharapova’s lives and perspectives are altered now, and both have something different to prove as they prepare for this fourth-round French Open duel and all that might happen beyond it — for the winner — in Paris this spring. Williams, who defeated 11th-seeded Julia Görges, 6-3, 6-4, on Saturday in the finest performance of her comeback from maternity leave, wants to show herself and anyone else concerned that she can resume being the game’s dominant force as a 36-year-old who gave birth to a daughter, Olympia, just nine months ago.

Source: New York Times June 02, 2018 18:59 UTC