‘Boring’ Serena to face Sharapova in Madrid final

Serena Williams’s tactic of staying in her hotel room and being “boring” appears to be paying off after the world no.1 swept past Sara Errani yesterday to set up a Madrid Open final against rival Maria Sharapova.

Chasing a 50th career title at the clay event in the Spanish capital, defending champion Williams was far too strong for Italian seventh seed Errani on the Manolo Santana show court, winning 7-5 6-2 before Sharapova made short work of 16th seed Ana Ivanovic to win their semi-final 6-4 6-3.

The Russian second seed and world number two, 26, will replace 31-year-old Williams at the top of the rankings if she gets the better of her in today’s title match.

Williams, whose interests away from tennis include fashion and acting, said she had been avoiding “too many extra-curricular activities” to concentrate on match preparation.

“I usually just stay in my room really and be the most boring person you can ever ima-gine,” she told a news conference.

“That’s kind of the way I get focused.”

Sharapova will be a different proposition to Errani as the French Open champion, who beat the Italian in last year’s Roland Garros final, is among the players on the Tour who can come close to matching Williams for power. However, Sharapova has only beaten the American twice in 14 attempts, and never on clay, and both those victories came almost a decade ago.

Men’s SFs: Nadal bt Andujar 6-0 6-4; Wawrinka bt Berdych 6-3 4-6 6-4.