jubilee27 wrote today on tennisforum:
Maria just needs ONE win against Serena to not be a punchbag anymore. ...just one. 
Agree, and the point may be more profound than the poster thought.
Serena is near the end now--the only debate is how soon is "near". The sisters' madate from the Yank sports commissariat is fulfilled. Just, they did not expect the rest of American tennis to go in the toliet while it played out... 
but not even they expect Serena to sustain the whole thing alone. ESPN2 is already memorializing her.
When Masha takes down Serena again--certainly if at a major--she will then fall to other top players in quick succession. That won't go on long because her preposterous, overblown domestic image (unstable as the woman personally) cannot sustain a string of highly visible losses.
She will quit while the mouthpieces can still claim she's the best that ever was or ever will be, and that the women's game is "irrelevant" without her (read "the Yanks can't hack it anymore").
That, of course, is the moment when players, backers, and tournaments of the new tennis powers should be prepared to make their move.
"That's the way the world works... right now." --Maria Sharapova at 17
