French Open 2015: Defending champion Maria Sharapova dumped out by 13th seed

Defending champion Maria Sharapova was dumped out of the French Open fourth round by 13th seed Lucie Safarova on Centre Court today.

The Russian second seed had played the last three finals at Roland Garros, winning in 2012 and 2014 but had terrible problems with her first serve and appeared to be lacking any confidence in this most basic of weapons. It was hard to believe she came into the second Slam of the year having won the Rome clay court event as Safarova, who lost to Petra Kvitova in the Wimbledon semi-finals last year, took control.

The Czech used her lefty serve to take Sharapova wide to the back hand and reduced the champion to playing one-handed left-hand shots to try and reach the swinging delivery.

Safarova trailed Sharapova 4-1 in career meetings going into the match which was played in blustery conditions and under leaden skies in Paris. The champion did not appear to be ready for the kind of ground stroke barrage that the Czech sent her way and while she was suffering with a cold last week, she will have only her poor serve to blame for this major set-back.

Sharapova fought her way into a tie-break in the first set only to lose all momentum as her opponent took it 7-3 to the delight of the centre court crowd who love to support the underdog. Sharapova raised her infamous grunting noise level to get herself into the second set although she had to overcome a 3-0 deficit to battle back to 3-3.

It appeared that she was going to at least take the match to a deciding set only for those serving problems to hit her badly. At one point she served a second effort that barely reached half way up the net and this only gave Safarova further confidence as she registered a first win over the Russian for five years. She wasted one match point after a desperate defence by Sharapova but another superb forehand cross court was too good for the cumbersome back hand of the Russian champion.