Despite lopsided loss, Capra enjoys the experience

Beatrice Capra didn't win a single game against Maria Sharapova Saturday. She never really troubled her in any way.

That didn't mean she couldn't revel in the experience and share a laugh afterward. Capra had, after all, achieved far more than she thought she was capable of. She made it to the main draw of the U.S. Open, won two matches, one against a seeded player, and walked onto blustery Arthur Ashe Stadium court Saturday to face one of the best players in the world. For an 18-year-old from Ellicott City, Md., this was heady stuff.

Capra got beat, 6-0, 6-0, in her third-round match, outmuscled by a three-time Grand Slam champion, a player whose mental toughness Capra always has wanted to emulate. She would have liked to have won a game, but there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

"It's nothing but positives for me," Capra said. "I mean, I beat a top-20 player in the world [Arvane Rezai]. I had a really good first round. Playing against Maria in Arthur Ashe, yeah, I'd like to do better, but you know, that was amazing."

Last year 17-year-old Melanie Oudin made it to Arthur Ashe to meet Sharapova, and after dropping the first set she rallied to beat her. There was no such rally Saturday.

"What happened last year, I really didn't want to go into the match thinking about it," Sharapova said. "I had lost the match and made way too many unforced errors.''

Oudin had texted Capra once it was certain that she would be playing Sharapova, offering to talk about the match.

"Melanie sent me the nicest text ever," Capra said. "She said if I needed advice, just come to her. Melanie and I are really good friends. I should have talked to Melanie before the match because I was wondering - I was like, was Melanie this nervous before she played?"

Her nerves were prickled even more in the corridor that leads to Ashe Stadium portal. "Before the match, she would just walk past me and kind of give me a glare, which is kind of intimidating," said Capra to much laughter.

Then the match began and Sharapova, all 6-1 of her, was a tower of strength. Capra won the first point of the match when Sharapova netted the return of her second serve. That was about as much as she gave Capra in the 1 hour, 13 minute duration.

"I had some break points that I could have won, you know, but she didn't give me anything," Capra said. "It's really intimidating, actually. Even though she's beating me that badly, she's still so focused."

It was very difficult to focus on Ashe yesterday, with gusty winds blowing debris and towels about, and blowing off Capra's visor during a rally in the second game. Capra's task was made all the more difficult because of it, yet in the end the experience was invaluable.

"It was just so amazing for her," said her sister Pia, who watched the match from the friends box in Ashe along with father Giovani and mother Laurie MacGill, a set of grandparents, an aunt and two high school friends of "Treecee."

"After the match, when we shook hands, she was really nice," Capra said of Sharapova. "She said 'great tournament, keep up the hard work' . . . It really meant a lot to me that she said that.''