Sharapova's Serving Slump
It’s time… and I mean right now! Maria Sharapova needs to nip the serving problems right away or she could develop a mental thing about her serve, which she already has to a certain extent. Sharapova has a big serve and part of what distinguished her serve in the past was not just her strong first serve, but the pace, high kick and variety of placement of her second serve. Sharapova has often had a few double faults in her matches, even when she won the 2006 U.S. Open. But
things are different now… 8 double faults in her first round, 13 against Venus Williams and 8 in her loss to Serena Williams. It’s not just the number of double faults; it’s how they seem to come in bunches and one can tell from Sharapova’s reaction and post-match comments that it’s really getting to her. What makes it all worse is that serving problems often seem to affect the rest of a player’s game. For Sharapova, her serve has not only gone from being a strength, which put her in control of most points on her service game, into a glaring weakness. It not only costs her points in terms of double faults, but it’s the mental anguish which seems to be counting for a couple points a game as well. So how does a player turn around a loss of confidence, rhythm and timing on the serve? Looking at the travails of fellow Russians Elena Dementieva and Anna Kournikova, as well as Argentinian Guillermo Coria, it is clearly not easy to fix. In order to find the confidence again, a player needs a combination of faith in her/his serving technique, as well as ways to relax when she/he gets nervous. Practice matches are never the same as playing a live match on international TV, but a player can still simulate the tense conditions, e.g. playing tie-breakers, having only one serve a point. Every player gets nervous, but the key is being to able to learn to relax oneself enough to hit the serve properly under match conditions. Sharapova needs to find this magic potion pronto!
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