Maria Sharapova is on a roll.
Did Caroline Wozniacki cast a spell on Rory McIlroy? His 78 on Friday says yes.
She had one of the best days of her tennis career on Friday, and only part of it was her 6-0, 6-0 dismantling of Paula Ormaecha in the third round of the French Open. While Serena Williams remains the No. 1 player in the world, Sharapova made considerable strides toward No. 1 in popularity.
After having to save three break points in the first set, Sharapova disposed of the overmatched Ormaecha in 51 minutes and then composed herself to tackle two potentially problematic post-match questions.
The first came in connection with comments made by Ernests Gulbis after his three-set victory over Radek Stepanek to advance to the fourth round.
Maria Sharapova is the French Open favorite with Serena out of the way
During his post-match news conference, Gulbis was asked whether he hoped his two younger half-sisters follow in his footsteps and become professional tennis players.
"Hopefully they will not pursue professional tennis career. Hopefully. Because for a woman, it's tough. I wouldn't like my sisters to become professional tennis players. It's tough choice of life," Gulbis said, according to Yahoo! Sports. "A woman needs to enjoy life a little bit more. Needs to think about family, needs to think about kids. What kids you can think about until age of 27 if you're playing professional tennis, you know.
"That's tough for a woman, I think."
Reporters jumped at the chance of asking 27-year-old - and childless - Sharapova her thoughts on Gulbis' comments.
Rather than add fuel to the fire, Sharapova disarmed the situation and even managed to cast Gulbis in a somewhat sympathetic light.
"I don't think we can take everything serious when he speaks," Sharapova said with a laugh, according to SI.com. "I mean, let's be honest with that. I think he's great entertainment and we love to listen to what he has to say... In a way, I think he was joking, but he's playing the sport, so how bad can it be? If he felt so bad about it, and even if he's a male, I don't think he'd be playing it."
"I think the sport brings so many opportunities to women. I mean, it's brought me so many things into my life and my career. I don't regret any step that I have taken. But then, on the other hand, sometimes I wake up and think, 'Well, I don't wish this on my kids,'" she said laughing.
"But then when I'm playing the matches, I'm in front of thousands of people and the experience that this sport brings, I think, of course I want my kids to do this, this is such a huge lesson in life."
Already on a high, Sharapova capped her perfect day with her response to the question of whether she considered herself the French Open favorite after No. 3 Agnieska Radwanska joined No. 1 Serena Williams and No. 2 Li Na on the sidelines after an upset loss.
"If I didn't have the mentality that I was the favorite inside myself when entering a tournament, I probably wouldn't even bother to play at all," Sharapova said, according to tennisworldusa.org. "I like to be positive and realistic. Thus, I don't see why I shouldn't be the favorite of the tournament. I don't want to look to far ahead, but I won the title here before, I won all four Grand Slams, so after all of that you do expect yourself to do well in those tournaments."
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