Maria Sharapova claimed her second French Open title at Roland Garros

Maria Sharapova claimed her second French Open title after coming through a marathon battle with Simona Halep 6-4 6-7 6-4 at Roland Garros.

Maria Sharapova celebrates her hard-fought victory at the French Open

The Russian seventh seed was forced to battle it out for just over three hours by her diminutive Romanian opponent, who kept coming back time after time in a pulsating contest in Paris
as the women's final went the distance for the first time in 13 years.

After Sharapova just edged the opening set, the second set swung backwards and forwards in a real thriller, with four breaks of serve on the bounce sending it into a tiebreaker.

22-year-old Halep defied the fact this was her first grand slam final to hold her nerve superbly and grind out the breaker to claim the breaker and send the final into a deciding final set.

Sharapova broke in the opening game of the third set, but yet again Halep showed bags of courage to hit back immediately, and repeated the dose after Sharapova stole her serve again for 3-2.

However the third break was just too much for Halept to recover from and with her resistance finally broken Sharapova served it out to claim her fifth grand slam title.