Maria Sharapova's Blueprint to Return to Elite Form After Her Suspension

Maria Sharapova will be back on the WTA tour April 26, nine months earlier than the suspension she had received after testing positive for meldonium at the 2016 Australian Open. The five-time major-winning superstar expressed her joy at the decision.

“I’ve gone from one of the toughest days of my career last March when I learned about my suspension to now, one of my happiest days, as I found out I can return to tennis in April,” she told the media, per BBC Sport.

Now that she has a target date to return, Sharapova will invest her efforts to return one week after her 30th birthday. It will be springtime with the ascending peak of the clay-court season in preparation for the French Open, the major tournament she can mostly likely win again.

It won’t be that easy, though. April 26 will merely be the beginning of a long and winding road if she is to become an elite player once again.

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Hurdles to Leap

Sharapova will come back to the WTA with zero ranking points. Although she’s arguably the most popular player ever in women’s tennis, and formerly the highest-paid female athlete in the world, she will not be seeded with preferential draws.

Instead, Sharapova will have to gain wild-card entries at tournaments and vie against top stars earlier in the draws. One week could see her matched up against Angelique Kerber or Serena Williams in the second round, and a week later she could be opening against Simona Halep or Garbine Muguruza.

Of course, the other top WTA superstars might not be so thrilled drawing a determined Sharapova in the early rounds, but tournament organizers will be more than happy to see the "marketing queen" of endorsements help sell tickets.

Sharapova might be a contender at the French Open or Wimbledon, if she regains her timing quickly and has fortunate draws, but it will be several more months before she could climb into the top 10, possibly sometime in early 2018, if she wins titles.

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For comparison, fellow superstar and former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka was sidelined with injuries by Wimbledon 2014. She returned in early 2015 but needed an entire year to return as a legitimate major threat and top-10 player in early 2016.

ATP star Juan Martin del Potro has been winning big matches against the best players in the world for several months, but he needs more time and ranking points to return to the top 10.

Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that Sharapova will be the player she was before the suspension. She will be in her early 30s competing against rising and increasingly younger players like French Open champion Muguruza. There are tough veterans in Kerber and the legendary Serena who has dominated Sharapova the way the Harlem Globetrotters treat the Washington Generals.

Or suppose that Sharapova does need the meldonium medication for just enough extra stamina that could mean the difference often enough in the third set. We don’t know how much of a factor this will be for the Russian in 2017.

Early on, Sharapova will be a significant story, and she’s likely to score some scattered triumphs, but the reality is that she is a long shot in returning as an elite player anytime soon, if at all.

The Perfect Storm

The case for Sharapova begins and ends with her competitive fire. For more than a decade, she rode her big groundstokes through all results; she hung her hat on baseline bashing regardless of injuries and defeats. Few players have shown this kind of stubborn success and toughness.

The day of the suspension reduction she appeared on the Charlie Rose Show and stated "I was born to be a warrior," and she posted the following clip on her Twitter account:

No matter what is said by outsiders, she's going to give her best to play at her former elite level.

There’s been time off to anguish, miss her sport and reflect on how fleeting a career can be. She’s not going to brush aside a second chance.

Sharapova will want to win back her past, meaning that she will feel she has to validate the five major titles she won when the meldonium was not a banned substance. There are sports fans who will judge her future against her past.

If Sharapova is not a factor in 2017-18, they will say she benefited greatly from performance-enhancing doses.

There will soon be life after tennis, but that will probably involve several more connections in the sport.

The quicker she gets back to playing, winning over fans and participating with the tour, the more likely it will be for her to stay in the business as she chooses. (And the more endorsements she will recover.)

The best-case Sharapova scenario will be a spectacular return with a clay-court title at Madrid or Rome, followed by a deep run at the French Open. She will have fresh legs and the desire to fight for every point in the sport that has shaped her identity.

“In so many ways, I feel like something I love was taken away from me and it will feel really good to have it back,” she said, per BBC Sport. “Tennis is my passion and I have missed it.”

Maybe there will be that initial surge of winning, and perhaps she will parlay her comeback into months of grinding out wins and titles. Only time will tell if Sharapova makes it all the way back as an elite superstar.