Top 10 Matches of 2015, No. 3: The Serena & Simona Show

What do we do now that the 2015 season is over and tennis is in its all-too-brief December recess? Go back and watch the best matches of the year, of course. Over the next two weeks, I’ll count down my 10 favorite contests, accompanied by video highlights, of this season.

No. 10: The Day the Circus Came to Town—Kyrgios d. Federer, Madrid
No. 9: New York Knockdown—Azarenka d. Kerber, U.S. Open
No. 8: Cup Runneth Over, and Over, and Over—Mayer d. Souza, Davis Cup
No. 7: Stan Mans Up—Wawrinka d. Djokovic, Roland Garros
No. 6: Simona Finds the Power—Halep d. Azarenka, U.S. Open
No. 5: Sending the Open Into Orbit—Fognini d. Nadal, U.S. Open
No. 4: Richard the...Lion-Hearted?—Gasquet d. Wawrinka, Wimbledon
No. 3: The Serena & Simona Show—Williams d. Halep, Miami
*No. 2: Vincanity—Vinci d. Williams, U.S. Open

No. 1: Fierce and Fiercer—Williams d. Azarenka, Wimbledon<em>*</em>

“I think we’ll see this rivalry flourish,” ESPN commentator Mary Joe Fernandez says after Serena Williams’ 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 win over Simona Halep in Miami. The jury is still out on that prediction; as of now, Serena leads their head to head 6-1. But this matchup certainly flourished for an evening in April.

Nine months later, it’s fun to watch the drama build again over the course of this 22-minute clip. What looked like a clean and efficient win by Serena—a statement match—turned into anything but, as Halep and her fan contingent had other ideas. Here are a few thoughts on our third-best match of 2015.

—It has been said that when Serena comes out with her best, most serious tennis against you, you’ve officially arrived as a player. If that’s the case, this match marked Halep’s arrival in the game’s upper echelon. It made sense that Serena would want to send a message. Halep had just won her biggest title, at Indian Wells, two weeks earlier, and Serena had been forced to withdraw from their semifinal there with a knee injury. No. 1 was ready to send No. 3—soon to be No. 2—a friendly reminder about where they stood in the pecking order.

—To that end, Serena plays with focus and control through the first set and a half, and delivers some of her finest tennis of 2015. She lets out a “Come on!” in the opening game, finds the corners with her ground strokes, and annihilates a Halep second serve. If there’s a shot that’s going to keep Halep from becoming a legitimate rival of Serena’s, it’s going to be that one.

While Serena can step forward on Simona’s second serve, Simona can’t do the same on Serena’s. You can see that Serena is comfortable using her safe kick serve on second balls in this match; Halep doesn’t move in to attack them. Granted, at 5’6”, it wouldn’t be easy, but adding a little pressure to Serena’s second serve wouldn’t hurt. Looking back, it seems that Halep is a little too content to react to what Serena does here.

—Of course, if Serena’s first serve is clicking, there’s not much any of her opponents can do. Is that an “ace walk” she gives us as she heads to the sideline after holding for 5-2? Does she try just a little harder to hit one when she knows there’s a changeover coming?

—Serena has a reputation as a player who wins with power rather than variety, but watch her here and you can see that it’s her combination of the two that makes her so tough. She’s equally proficient going down the line or crosscourt off both sides, something that’s not always true even of the best players. It does happen to be true for Halep, which makes their rallies so entertainingly athletic.

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—You might wonder, watching her make everything so simple and drama-free, why Serena can’t play that way all the time. It’s the same as asking why Roger Federer shanks the ball, or why Rafael Nadal hits it short, or why Steffi “Fraulein Forehand” Graf couldn’t always make her forehand do what she wanted it to do. Nobody’s perfect in tennis, which is a delicate balancing act at all times. Keeping your emotional balance is as difficult as balancing the power and control in your shots.

—“Nobody’s perfect” is a lesson that Halep sometimes seems to forget. The Romanian gets down on herself when she doesn’t live up to her high shot-making standards. We don’t see much of that here, though; Halep has nothing to lose against Serena, and she plays like it in the second and third sets. Her crosscourt running forehand is especially good in this match—can we call it “Murray-esque”?

—Shot of the match: Serena’s topsspin lob winner, and her subsequent “get up” message to the Miami crowd. Clip of the match: Halep running and smiling as Serena’s lob kicks away from her.

—Not many players, after winning a point at 0-40 down, will fire themselves up; they still have two more to go just to get to deuce. The only regular exceptions are Serena and Nadal. Serena does it here after a forehand winner, and while she goes on to lose the game, the positive energy has its effect.

—“I guess it’s redundant to beg you to stay for the third set,” ESPN’s Cliff Drysdale says at the end of the second. Indeed—with Serena struggling, Halep scrambling, and the Romanian crowd in full “See-moan-ah!” war cry, this match had one of the best closing acts of the season.

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—Serena’s forehand abandons her, so she comes to the net to win points; then she talks to herself about it as she walks back to the baseline. It makes me wish she had been a serve-and-volleyer; imagine all the conversations she would have had with herself on her trips back from the net. From 2-5 down, though, Halep answers with winning shots of her own.

—The peak comes with Serena serving at 5-5. She has just lost three games; one more and Halep will serve for the match. But as she did all year, Serena stopped the rot just in time. Here she does it with a flourish, by ending the best rally of the evening with a backhand winner down the line.

—And that’s the end—Serena breaks at love for the match. Halep had come up against her ceiling, and she would come up against that same ceiling four months later in another tight loss to Serena in the Cincinnati final.

In Miami, a message had been sent by both players: Serena was still No. 1, but Halep was worthy of her best. Here's hoping their "rivalry" lives up to that word in 2016.