Mauresmo survives nervous moments

Had Amelie Mauresmo, and not Zinedine Zidane, taken the French penalty on Wednesday night we wouldn't all have had to crash the World Cup street party that erupted around Old Brompton Road in the Royal borough of Chelsea and Kensington.

For all her athletic charm and stylish choreography on the tennis court, Mauresmo is not the person you would chose to hold together nerve endings that are firing around the body like a pinball machine.

The world number one has demonstrated a mental frailty before but, as she swept aside Maria Sharapova yesterday 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 to earn a meeting in the Wimbledon final with Belgium's Justin Henin-Hardenne, Mauresmo now has the chance to grasp the opportunity and, as Zidane did, convert the penalty.

While her conquest of the 6ft 2ins fourth seed Sharapova has taken her to a career peak of Centre Court on final day, a place that she has never been before, there were flashes of the player held together with gossamer as much as the steel will that held firm in the third set to see off one of the toughest scrappers in the women's game.

Mauresmo was one part tissue and two parts granite against an opponent who went out on court to bury her under the weight of a heavy back-court game but ended up helping to bury herself. Just how much of Sharapova's self-inflicted wounds were fatal is difficult to measure but suffice it to say that the bread-and-butter forehand hit wide at the end of the third set to hand Mauresmo the match was one of many that peppered the match.

From the beginning the Australian Open champion dared Sharapova to pass her at the net. As the winner here two years ago, it was well within the Russian's ability to do just that, but the Mauresmo serve was in working order as she led 4-3 in the first set. It was then Sharapova hit her first stretch of turbulence and her serve faltered. Mauresmo pounced, hit a backhand winner then served out the set 6-3.

In the second set Mauresmo swept to a 3-1 lead and had Sharapova love 40 down on her serve in the fifth game. From that vantage point the end of the match was in clear view. It was then the unravelling began. Sharapova fought back to deuce and took the game for 2-3. Mauresmo, having let the game slide, then found her serve under pressure, offered Sharapova two break points and double faulted for 3-3. Sharapova went on to serve for 4-3, break Mauresmo's serve for 5-3 and serve out for the set.

That was the ugly part but Mauresmo's resurrection was swift and again she swept to a 4-0 lead in the third set as Sharapova mixed beautifully angled winners with scruffy net play and unforced errors. The second bite was enough for Mauresmo and while she offered break points she held for the match and her third Grand Slam final.

She now faces Henin-Hardenne, who retired in the final of the Australian Open against Mauresmo due to a gastro-intestinal illness. The Belgian beat her compatriot Kim Clijsters 6-4, 7-6 in just over an hour and a half.

"I really think this final is going to be about tennis," said Mauresmo. "That's what I want it to be. I think it's good (to play Henin-Hardenne). She probably feels very happy about it also to have the opportunity to have revenge after the final in Australia."

It will for the connoisseurs be a chance to see the two best backhands in the women's game and for Henin-Hardenne an opportunity to face a player whose game she knows well and in a final she last contested in 2001. Her match against Clijsters was even more familiar territory and, over two sets, considerably less taxing. The third seed, Henin-Hardenne, has yet to drop a set here and last month became only the sixth woman in the Open era to win Roland Garros without dropping a set. She has now played 13 Grand Slam matches without losing one set.

While Clijsters broke serve first, it was Henin-Hardenne, who finished stronger, breaking twice in the eighth and 10th games for the first set. Another exchange of service games in the second set as Clijsters sought to inflict her route-one game on her opponent levelled the pair but the tea-break fell to the third seed, Henin-Hardenne showing the mettle and intensity contained in her waif-like physique.

Martina Navratilova famously summed up her view on tennis and life in typically direct fashion. "Whoever said: 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts', probably lost." How ironic then that she should bow out of Wimbledon for the last time by losing twice in one day.

First, with South African partner Liezel Huber, she lost 6-4 4-6 0-6 to Chinese fourth seeds Zi Yan and Jie Zheng in the women's doubles quarter-finals. Then, with Mark Knowles, she went down 5-7 1-6 to Andy Ram, of Israel and Russia's Vera Zvonareva in the third round of the mixed event. It meant there was to be no fairytale breaking of the record of 20 Wimbledon titles she shares with Billie Jean King.