Maria Sharapova beats Caroline Wozniacki to claim Indian Wells trophy
The second seed Russian, Maria Sharapova, has won the BNP Paribas Open after a comfortable 6-2 6-2 victory in the final. The former world number 1 only needed 81 minutes to get her hands on the trophy for the second time in her career.
Sharapova played some ruthless tennis to deny the 22-year-old Dane Caroline Wozniacki any window of opportunity. The Russian broke her opponent’s opening service game to love before extending her lead with effective serves.
At the change of events, Wozniacki had some words of advice from her father, however Sharapova wasn’t going to let up as the four times Grand Slam Champion broke once again thanks to powerful groundstrokes.
The only occasion when the defending French Champion’s serve came under threat was on the last game of the first set. The 25-year-old was showing some signs of nerves as the pressure of closing out the set has led to few unforced errors. Regardless of a slight slip up Sharapova managed to recover from two break points down to hit a dominant backhand followed by a forehand winner down the line to close out the first set.
Sharapova carried her winning momentum into the second set by breaking the Dane’s serve once again with a forehand, Wozniacki’s double fault gave the game away to the Russian. Sharapova confidently held onto her serve in the second game of the second set before Woznniacki was finally able to get herself on the scoreboard again after Sharapova’s run of five straight games.
The Dane fought hard throughout the whole match in her usual “brick wall” defending style however Sharapova’s pace and power proved too much on the day for the Dane as the second seed broke once again and held onto her own serve to win the match 6-2 6-2.
Sharapova regains the world number 2 position as of Monday 18th March, sitting behind Serena Williams.
Umida Ibrahimova, sports correspondent
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