The signal of Mary's maturity arrived in her semi final encounter against world #1 Martina Hingis. After overpowering her 5'7" opponent to gain a seemingly unstoppable lead of 6-4 5-3, Mary lost the game as she served for the match, wilting under the pressure of the occasion. Understandably so. Not so forgivable was the fact that she let blow a match point at 5-4 on Martina's serve in the second set to eventually lose the set and allow the match to be tied at one set all. Many commented that a second set loss in such demoralising fashion would destroy Mary for the third set. Past observations would predict that Mary would wilt to the fatigue, the pressure of having been so close yet so far and the second wind of her opponent. However, Mary is queen of the unpredictable! It turned out that Martina's second wind was short lived and in fact never got herself into the third set. Mary, on the other hand, was not going to let a beautiful opportunity slip away like it often had in the past. She found her range and ripped the powerful strokes like she had been doing all day long. The decision was hers 6-4 5-7 6-2.
It was either girl's tournament to win. Down to 5th seed Conchita Martinez and 6th seed Mary Pierce in the final, their head-to-head statistics coming into this match were fairly competitive - Mary led the series 10-6, although Conchita had beaten Mary when they had played in the second round at Roland Garros last year. If Mary was aggressive from the first ball, if she was able to get the first strike from the serve and return, if she was going to move forward, she was going to win. If Conchita could draw her opponent into long rallies and keep her off-balance with a variety of spins, it was Conchita's title for the taking. As it turned out, Mary's aggression and power were all too much for a nervous Conchita in the first set, who put up very little resistance against the Pierce barrage. The second set could have gone either way. Conchita was more and more able to get Mary into the long rallies, dominating them with her deep topspin groundstrokes and forcing Mary into long-winded and tiring baseline duels to find herself down an early break. Mary rebounded with a counter break but continued to face the pressure of being so close to her ultimate dream - to win the French Open in front of her home crowd. However, serving from behind at 4-3 and 5-4, Mary played some awesome games to prevent Conchita from taking the match to a third set and went on to serve for the match at 6-2 6-5. Again, Mary's nerve withered slightly at the prospect of an amazing victory, but she gutted it out. Not after one match point. Not after two. But on the lucky third one! With a big service winner down the T, Mary was overjoyed yet somewhat stunned due to the biggest victory of her career.
