Fires lit as Serena Williams delivers cutting remarks about next opponent at French Open - Maria Sharapova

After beating Julia Goerges to set up the dream showdown, Serena Williams delivered some cutting remarks about her next opponent - Maria Sharapova - and especially Sharapova’s recent autobiography Unstoppable.

“I think the book was 100 per cent hearsay,” said Williams. “At least all the stuff I read and the quotes that I read, which was a little bit disappointing.”

Sharapova suggested in Unstoppable that Williams has been determined to beat her since their famous 2004 Wimbledon final. According to this account, the defeat left a bitter taste, and all the more so because Sharapova had caught sight of Williams crying in the locker room afterwards.

But Williams questioned this. “I have cried in the locker room many times after a loss,” she said. “It's a Wimbledon final. So I think it would be more shocking if I wasn't in tears. I think what happens there should definitely maybe stay there and not necessarily talk about it in a not-so-positive way in a book.”

Williams was also asked about her regular appearances in the rest of Unstoppable – in which Sharapova admits that she had watched her old foe covertly as a young junior, and also suggested that “Serena and I should be friends”.

“The book was a lot about me,” confirmed Williams. “I was surprised about that, to be honest. You know, I was, like, ‘Oh, okay. I didn't expect to be reading a book about me, that wasn't necessarily true’. So I was, like, ‘This is really interesting, but... I don't know. I didn't know she looked up to me that much or was so involved in my career.

“I don't have any negative feelings towards her, which again, was a little disappointing to see in that hearsay book. Especially having a daughter, like, I feel like negativity is taught. One of the things I always say, I feel like women, especially, should bring each other up.

“And I was one of the few people that, [with] her whole drug incident, I was, like, ‘She was brave to say something’. I didn't have anything negative to say about Maria. So of course I wanted to read it [Unstoppable] and just see what was going on.”

There may be another 14 women left in the draw, but when Williams and Sharapova start yelling at each other on Monday, Court Philippe Chatrier will be the only place that matters. Even Saturday’s final will struggle to generate the same wattage as this humdinger.

To get there, Williams had to overcome 11th seed Goerges in front of a capacity crowd that included former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Her movement is still well short of her athletic best, but her groundstrokes are carrying a payload that he might recognise. Goerges barely threw a punch of her own as she was hustled out of the tournament by a 6-3, 6-4 scoreline.

The rest of the field should be concerned by the way Williams is improving with each round. Her favourable first-round draw against Krystina Pliskova has proved significant, because she was carrying a thick layer of rust at that stage. In the second round against Ashleigh Barty, she came in so stiff and sore that she could barely move in the opening set.

But then, since her territorial scream of self-revelation midway through that second match, the real Serena has returned. Saturday’s scorecard showed 20 clean winners and just 12 unforced errors, figures that she would have been satisfied with at her peak.

As for Sharapova, she was superbly efficient in her 6-2, 6-1 victory over sixth seed Karolina Pliskova. But there is no baggage in that relationship to weigh her down, whereas she trails Williams by 19 wins to two and has not beaten her for 15 years.

“It's been a while, and I think a lot has happened in our lives for the both of us in very different ways,” said Sharapova, whose last meeting with Williams – in the Australian Open quarter-final of 2016 – proved fateful when her post-match urine sample tested positive for the banned substance meldonium.

“Despite the record that I have against her,” Sharapova added, “I always look forward to coming out on the court and competing against the best player.”