The Russian looked weary, and her legs wobbly at times, as she fell to Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, 6-0, 6-2, in the quarterfinals of the French Open. Sharapova looking tired and flat for much of the match is not that big of a surprise since she had won three-setters in all four previous matches in this year's tournament. She played a lot of tennis for someone sidelined for so long, and it caught up to her.
Sharapova, who has never won this major, wasn’t driving the ball until very late in the match. It certainly appeared she did not have enough left in the tank. There are those days when a player just doesn’t feel sharp, whether it’s in striking the ball, or being mentally in tune with every single point. Sharapova had one of those days.
Sharapova was trying to be offensive consistently, but she was making errors (she had 27 unforced errors in the match) so she pulled back too much. There’s that fine line of controlled aggression where a player is driving the ball, but also able to keep the majority of balls in play. Early on Sharapova was error prone, so she pulled back, and Cibulkova benefitted from that.
