How much better does she have to be?

Well, like most of their previous meetings, in the Australian Open 2015 final, Maria Sharapova lost to Serena Williams.   This time, she pushed her to a second set tiebreaker after a 6-3 first set, and even the tiebreaker was close.

So I ask, how much better does Sharapova have to play to beat Serena?   Because it's difficult to see how she could play much better than she did yesterday.

I checked;  three of her five runner-up finishes in Grand Slam tournaments have been to Serena.  If she'd won those instead of lost them, she'd have eight Grand Slam titles.  That would put her into the Top 10 all-time, tied with Suzanne Lenglen.   This is reminiscent of how many more titles Andre Agassi would have had if it hadn't been for a guy named Sampras.  Though she's done pretty well (especially financially), I kinda wish she had a couple more, for the sake of history.