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Serena Williams Takes 50th Title, Still Number One

By Elaine Radford
Published on: 01:49 PST, May 12, 2013

Serena Williams has triumphed again to win the 2013 Madrid Open, netting her 50th title and retaining her position as the world’s number one women’s tennis player. It was her first red clay title win since the 2002 French Open — and what many observers thought might be Maria Sharapova’s best chance to defeat her bitter rival.

Before the match, Sports Illustrated published a harsh timeline of Sharapova’s previous matches against Williams — a losing streak that goes back to 2005.

However, fans hoped for a better game than the SI statistics suggested because Sharapova is normally a strong red clay player. She’d won eight previous red clay finals in a row.

In the end, Williams easily crushed Sharapova 6-1, 6-4. As one fan put it, “Serena Williams just owns Maria Sharapova. Beat her 1 and 4…for her 12th straight win over Maria.”

TV personality Star Jones tweeted: “I think the word of the day is VANQUISHED!”

The second-ranked Russian had a terrible first set where she seemed to visibly battle with her serve. She did slightly better in the second set but it just wasn’t enough.

Fans raved about Serena Williams’ performance using phrases like “power packed” and “amazing.” Some people were shocked by the speed of the defeat. One Twitter fan noted that she’d come back from church to watch the match — only to learn that it was already over. Oops.

Here’s the Twitter nickel summary of Serena’s win today:

[Serena Williams photo by Neale Cousland / Shutterstock.com]

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