The nervous energy and sense of expectation around first-round showdown will light a flame under the championshipsIf
Serena Williams really did say of Maria Sharapova in the
Wimbledon locker room in tearful defeat 15 years ago, “I will never lose to that little bitch again”, she was wrong but she set in train the most impassioned and complex rivalry in tennis.
When it reaches its latest and probably final peak – in the first round of the
US Open on Monday night – the 22nd match scheduled between the emotional
American and the ice-cold
Russian might lack the
fire and quality of the past but it will be none the less enthralling for that.