A few days ago, Maria Sharapova was safely locked in the jaws of defeat. But she pried them open and jumped out, and it now appears that it will be very hard to stop her at the Australian Open.
Someday, a bearded, wise man will wander in from some windblown desert and explain why a player who has survived a near-death experience in a tournament draw -- theoretically, a humbling experience, bad for one's sense of self-worth and all that -- so often goes on a winning rampage.
Since she escaped two match points in her seesaw battle with No. 150-ranked Alexandra Panova in the second round, Sharapova has been bombarding opponents with tooth-jarring, inside-out forehands and drive volleys. She's lost a grand total of five games in her past two matches, the latest a 6-3, 6-0 pasting of No. 21 seed Peng Shuai.
Sharapova's quarterfinal opponent will be No. 7 seed Eugenie Bouchard, who nearly wasted a seemingly overwhelming lead of 6-1, 3-0 over Irina-Camelia Begu on Sunday before she regrouped to win it 6-1, 5-7, 6-2. In her postmatch news conference, Bouchard said of her lapse: "It's disappointing for me because I want to play so well, and I want to be perfect. That's not possible. It happens."
Sharapova could certainly tell the 20-year-old ingénue from Montreal that perfection is an overrated concept. But Sharapova is more likely to communicate with the ghost of Suzanne Lenglen through the medium Shirley MacLaine than she is to chitchat with Bouchard. The two are similar enough in almost every way to ensure they're most likely to become rivals -- on the court and in the marketplace -- and the best of enemies.
For our purposes, their similarity is evident right down to the roots of their tennis sensibilities. As Sharapova, who is 27, said of the game's newest megastar: "She's a pretty aggressive player. She stays really close to the line. She likes to dictate the points. Yeah, I feel that's where she's hurt a lot of players and been really successful."
If Sharapova wants to prep for their match by playing a few games against someone who plays like Bouchard, she's going to have to find a way to play both sides of the net. That could get tiring.
Until she lost the plot three games into the second set Sunday, Bouchard was busy demonstrating the qualities that enabled her to make three semifinals (one of them put her in the Wimbledon final) in Grand Slam events last year. She attacked Begu's serve and dictated the nature of the points by taking the ball on the rise from on or near the baseline. It's the same thing Sharapova does and something at which she's gotten noticeably better under the guidance of her coach, Sven Groeneveld.
The posture comes naturally to Bouchard, though it requires such focus that it's relatively easy to let up -- sometimes just to get a mental breather. "I think I started being a bit less aggressive, a bit too passive, and, you know, that's not my game at all," Bouchard told the media. "I don't do well when that happens. ... But I'm happy that I could regroup and, yeah, play a bit better tennis in the third. I want to build on that for the next match."
Bouchard is more flexible than Sharapova; the contrast is most visible if you watch both women serve. As capable as Sharapova is of delivering the knockout punch, her service action is somewhat stiff. But where Sharapova is statuesque, Bouchard is like one of those cartoon statues, such as Gumby, that bends in the wind. She's surprisingly elastic, despite her height of 5-foot-10 (that's still 4 inches shorter than Sharapova), and for that reason, she's more capable of adjusting to ambient conditions or ironing out a kink in the serving process. Bouchard also plays with a low center of gravity, which might be the most difficult -- and most valuable -- talent for a woman her size.
The women have met three times, but not since the semifinals of last year's French Open. There, Bouchard bagged the first set, but Sharapova gradually reeled her in on the slow, red clay and won the match in three tough sets. "That was a really tough match for me," Sharapova said of facing Bouchard. "I had to come back from being down one set to love. Yeah, I'm sure she'll come out and play extremely well."
Sharapova could afford to be charitable, and not only because she's been playing with house money since that match. She's produced some terrific tennis, much of it enabled by the way she's succeeding in making opponents play on her terms. The terms are relatively simple: Serving or returning, she steps into the court. She blasts an inside-out forehand. If that comes back, she blasts another inside-out forehand. Then she challenges the call or signals to the ball kid for a towel.
You know Sharapova is playing some terrific tennis when she can give up just three games, as she did Sunday, without putting 50 percent of her first serves into play. But when she evaluated herself, she exercised self-restraint.
"I played solid," she said. "I don't think I did anything spectacular but felt that I was consistent. I served smart at times. I returned quite well. I think that really helped me. I think I won the right points at the right time and, ultimately, won the match."
Looking back to their latest meeting, at Roland Garros, Bouchard said: "I think I've progressed a lot since then. I definitely want to keep playing my game, no matter what. Really kind of take it to her, go for my shots. That's what I want to do on the court."
Bouchard's youthful bravado is admirable. It's one of those intangible assets. But then, so is the aura of invincibility now surrounding Maria Sharapova.