These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

It’s been a weird summer for Maria Sharapova. After getting blown off the court in Toronto, literally and metaphorically, by a crafty youngster, she went on to win Cincinnati. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t easy, but above all, it was effective. At the end of the match she was the better player, and at the end of the tournament she was the best player.

Unfortunately for her, it was a fine balance, and this week the scales didn’t quite tip as she would have liked them.

“I made way too many unforced errors. I fought back to get myself back in the match in the third set. I think the first three, four games on every game I had a chance to win that game, whether it was a breakpoint or it was a game point on my serve, and I didn’t win those games.” “Um, I didn’t feel comfortable with most of my game today,” said Sharapova.

Make no doubt about it, there are always two players on the court. Pennetta was incredibly consistent today, and persistent. She also overcame a huge mental hurdle in the third set, when she blew two break points to go up 4-0 and eventually found herself back on serve.

” Well, I just starting to play not too much shots in the same position to try to move her a lot and try to let her run a lot, and I think it was working really good. All the time when she move on the forehand she have a little bit of problem; with the backhand she can do whatever she want. So also I starting to be really aggressive when she was serving. I try to just let her think too much and maybe make some double fault,” said Pennetta. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s experience, maybe it’s luck, but getting Maria Sharapova to over think is a wonderful strategy, and it worked.

For Masha, it’s a match in a string of frustrating up and downs since her comeback from her shoulder injury. The ability is there, but the changes to the serve still haven’t quite worked out and one could argue the mental steel isn’t quite there either. After a double fault that brought up 0-30, 4-5 on her serve in the third she looked near tears. It was as if to say “no matter how hard I push back, I just can’t quite make it.” She lost that game and the match.

Luckily for Sharapova, her year is not over and she has a chance to return to Asia, where she found success last year, and the Year End Championships. ” I’m not really looking forward to a 14 hour flight in a couple of weeks. Yeah, the year is not over. We’ve still got I think I still have three tournaments to go or so. Yeah, once they come then it will be time to play again and raise my level. Until then, I just have to, you know, keep working in order for me to go out in the match and raise it.”

Photo: Getty