One of the few players with the game to trouble Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova’s decade-long losing streak to the American great is one of the more curious anomalies in women’s tennis.

Sharapova was a 17-year-old sensation when she last beat Williams at the title-decider of her debut at the season-ending Tour Finals in 2004.

That win followed her Wimbledon triumph a few months earlier when she shocked the American top seed in the final, a result hailed as one of the greatest upsets in the modern era by tennis writers at the time.

It has all been one-way traffic since with Williams, 33, notching 15 successive victories on all surfaces, a record that Sharapova has been reminded of, again and again, before her bid to break the streak in the Australian Open women’s final today.

“I go into matches where I’ve beaten opponents and I don’t want to focus on that because I don’t want to get overly confident going onto the court,” Sharapova said yesterday.

Williams would become by far the oldest woman to win at Melbourne Park in the professional era, eclipsing the retired Li Na’s effort last year at the age of 31.

A cold has been troubling her and she delayed a training session yesterday before coming out for a hit later in the afternoon.