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By Charles Bricker

It was like a one hour and 27-minute primal scream therapy session with the two loudest and most obnoxious shriekers in women’s tennis — Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova — caterwauling through an ear-splitting final at the Bank of the West Classic in Palo Alto, Calif. on Sunday afternoon.

The Belarussian won 6-4, 6-1, her first title since April of last year, and, though this still was something of a triumph in defeat for Sharapova, by far the more important news was being made 400 miles south in Westwood, Calif., where Sam Querrey played one of the great matches of his young career in upsetting Andy Murray in the Farmers Classic final.

Everything U.S. tennis fans have been hoping for from “Q Ball” was on display in this 5-7, 7-6 (2), 6-3 win, but nothing he did this afternoon was as significant as the maturity he showed in beating back a match point at 4-5 in the second set and taking control in the third.

He was being out-foxed, as so many have been, by Murray’s war-of-attrition tennis. He was missing overheads and shoulder-high gimme volleys. He went flat at crucial moments and he was down match point at 30-40.

Yet Querrey never caved against the No. 4 player in the world, and it’s remarkable how far he has come at age 22.

Big serve? Check. Killer forehand? Check. Foot speed? More than good enough because, though he’s no 4.4 sprinter over 40 yards, those long legs and arms cover a lot of court.

The backhand has come a long way, but there’s still some miles to travel, and, though he’s a very willing volleyer, he’s got a lot of technique work to do there.

But if this match proved anything, it put on display Querrey’s emotional grit and confidence. How many times did he astonish Murray with well-executed drop shots? The game plan was to increase his patience and stay in the long rallies against an opponent whose general philosophy about tennis is, “Get it back, get it back deep and don’t worry about about pace.”

For Querrey, this was about holding the trigger on those forehands just one more shot. Always just one more shot. And when Murray made those frustrating running saves in the corner, just hold your frustration. If you stay in the points long enough with Murray, you’ll get a half-short ball. That’s when you take it.

That’s a tough game-plan assignment for any player not that far removed from his teenaged years, and Querrey had moments in this final where he twitched too early. But he generally stuck with the plan coach David Nainkin gave him and, in the end, that and Murray’s fatigue made the difference.

The crucial moment came on Murray’s match point, when he hit wide to end an excruciatingly long rally that left him gasping for breath and leaning on his knees. He was hardly out on his feet, but you could see he was tired of chasing down Q’s forehands, occasional backhands up the line and those cheeky drop shots.

And when Murray tires, it always seems to affect his shot selection. He opened the tiebreak with a horrible drop shot into the net and a lob wide to give Querrey at 2-0 lead. At 5-2, Q served it out.

Into the third set they went and Murray, the man who makes uncommonly few unforced errors, was spraying shots and going into a deep defensive shell, probably hoping Querrey didn’t have the maturity to bang out this win with so much at stake. Completely wrong.

Querrey broke to 4-2 on another failed Murray drop shot and now the Brit was punching his strings with his right hand until he bloodied a couple of knuckles. He was slamming his racket against his shoe in disgust and tapping the frame against his forehand, as if he was trying to wake up his brain.

Querrey had had his feisty moments, too, shattering a racket after losing the opening set and earning a code violation warning. But, for 99 percent of this match, he looked the same cool, what-me-worry kid who was in high school a couple years ago and who was now No. 20 in the world.

Murray had one final chance at resurrection, but Querrey snuffed it with a forehand winner down the line. He then slugged a service winner and earned the Los Angeles title for the second year in a row when Murray, stepping inside the baseline to take a second serve early, pushed it long.

All of Querrey’s four matches in L.A. went four matches and he was 0-10 in sets against Murray coming into this match. Since he was defending maximum points from this tournament, his ranking isn’t going to be much affected.

Azarenka, however, who was No. 18 the past week, will move up to about No. 15 and Sharapova will jump from No. 15 to top 10.

There are considerably more sets of eyes on Sharapova than on her Belarussian conqueror because here is a three-time Grand Slam winner who seems to be rapidly getting her game back to top form. She can’t be too irritated about getting waxed in this final because this season for her is about building, and she played at a very high level on the Stanford University courts.

Her serve, which is a very big issue in her return to top form, was in and out much of the week. She had 15 double faults in one match and only three Sunday. But Azarenka, one of the best returners on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, was punishing in this championship match.

Sharapova got in more than 70 percent of her first serves, but was on 21-20 on her firsts, 3-12 on her seconds. That was the difference.

This was the fourth time these two players have screamed at each other over the net and it’s now even at two wins apiece. It was, in a sense, a win for both players and, really, the only losers were those fans who didn’t have the foresight to bring earplugs to the final.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com. He is an alumni of the University of California at Berkeley and has had 41 distinguished years in the news business, covering 25 NFL seasons and Super Bowls and for the last 16 years, he has covered men’s and women’s professional tennis. Listen to Charlie every Monday at 7 pm – and on podcast – on World Tennis talk at http://primesportsnetwork.com/tennis.html