Don't Count out Maria!
Don’t count out Maria!
The 2004 champ may be set for a dramatic comeback
By Dan Hunter
SW19 opened for business on Monday.
Roger Federer started the proceedings dressed like an extra from An Officer and a Gentleman. Stripped for action, he won comfortably in straight sets. So did Venus and Serena. Djokovic struggled and Blake fell. We looked forward to seeing Andy Murray, but we couldn't quite shrug off the spectre of losing our greatest star from the competition; the incomparable Rafa.
Oh, and almost as a footnote, Maria Sharapova, generously seeded 24th, rallied from 4-1 down in the first set to defeat Ukrainian Viktoriya Kutuzova.
Just two years ago you couldn’t get away from Maria Sharapova. The 6´1´´ Russian stunner with the Floridian accent was the highest profile, highest earning female athlete on the planet, arguably of all time, with an annual income in excess of 25 million dollars.
If you´d picked up a magazine, chances are, she’d be in it or on it - either wearing a swimsuit on the cover of Sports Illustrated or FHM, or advertising beauty products in Vogue or Cosmopolitan. If you turned on the TV, you would see her advertising anything from deodorant to video games.
And best of all, she could actually play. Boy could she play. Anyone who saw her announce herself to the rest of the world when as a relatively unknown 17 year old, she completely annihilated the previously invincible Serena Williams, blowing her away 6-1 6-4 with an awesome display of controlled power tennis, would testify to that.
By August 2005 she was world number 1. She took the US Open in 2006, and the Australian Open in January of last year. But by then a chronic shoulder injury was beginning to seriously hamper her serve. In September of last year she announced she would take the rest of the year off. During that time she underwent shoulder surgery. She didn’t pick up a tennis racket for seven months.
In May of this year, Maria Sharapova finally returned to action. She had been out of the game for almost eleven months, and she was ranked 126 in the world. In her subsequent three tournaments, her progress has been steady, if not quite spectacular. Two quarterfinals and a semi in Edgbaston have shown flashes of the Sharapova of old. They were there again on Monday. She has, at least for now, lost a little power on her serve. But her ground strokes, always the cornerstone of her game, are starting to look ominous.
Tennis is littered with stories of great champions, seemingly out of sorts or on the slide or completely over the hill, coming from nowhere to claim a Grand Slam title.
Think Andre Agassi winning the 1994 US Open unseeded. Think Goran Ivanisevic doing the unthinkable and winning Wimbledon in 2001 while ranked 126 in the world, and needing a wild card. Think Pete Sampras, stumbling around on the tour like a punch drunk fighter for over two years, then suddenly remembering what a great player he was as he blazed a trail to the US Open title in 2002. And more recently, Serena Williams, unseeded, out of shape and over the hill, or so we all thought. Before our disbelieving eyes, she defied all the normal criteria of sport, and a number 81 ranking in the world, to take the 2007 Australian Open title, beating guess who in the final? Maria Sharapova.
Maria Sharapova seems to have been around forever. She is in fact just 22 years old. She is now up to number 59 in the world.
She is not over the hill. She is not out of shape.
If she really, truly believes she can win Wimbledon, it will take something very special indeed to stop her. If she catches a hot streak, don’t be too surprised if she is in the opposite court to a Williams sister on the final Saturday of the tournament.
dandavehunter@gmail.com
Don’t count out Maria!
The 2004 champ may be set for a dramatic comeback
By Dan Hunter
SW19 opened for business on Monday.
Roger Federer started the proceedings dressed like an extra from An Officer and a Gentleman. Stripped for action, he won comfortably in straight sets. So did Venus and Serena. Djokovic struggled and Blake fell. We looked forward to seeing Andy Murray, but we couldn't quite shrug off the spectre of losing our greatest star from the competition; the incomparable Rafa.
Oh, and almost as a footnote, Maria Sharapova, generously seeded 24th, rallied from 4-1 down in the first set to defeat Ukrainian Viktoriya Kutuzova.
Just two years ago you couldn’t get away from Maria Sharapova. The 6´1´´ Russian stunner with the Floridian accent was the highest profile, highest earning female athlete on the planet, arguably of all time, with an annual income in excess of 25 million dollars.
If you´d picked up a magazine, chances are, she’d be in it or on it - either wearing a swimsuit on the cover of Sports Illustrated or FHM, or advertising beauty products in Vogue or Cosmopolitan. If you turned on the TV, you would see her advertising anything from deodorant to video games.
And best of all, she could actually play. Boy could she play. Anyone who saw her announce herself to the rest of the world when as a relatively unknown 17 year old, she completely annihilated the previously invincible Serena Williams, blowing her away 6-1 6-4 with an awesome display of controlled power tennis, would testify to that.
By August 2005 she was world number 1. She took the US Open in 2006, and the Australian Open in January of last year. But by then a chronic shoulder injury was beginning to seriously hamper her serve. In September of last year she announced she would take the rest of the year off. During that time she underwent shoulder surgery. She didn’t pick up a tennis racket for seven months.
In May of this year, Maria Sharapova finally returned to action. She had been out of the game for almost eleven months, and she was ranked 126 in the world. In her subsequent three tournaments, her progress has been steady, if not quite spectacular. Two quarterfinals and a semi in Edgbaston have shown flashes of the Sharapova of old. They were there again on Monday. She has, at least for now, lost a little power on her serve. But her ground strokes, always the cornerstone of her game, are starting to look ominous.
Tennis is littered with stories of great champions, seemingly out of sorts or on the slide or completely over the hill, coming from nowhere to claim a Grand Slam title.
Think Andre Agassi winning the 1994 US Open unseeded. Think Goran Ivanisevic doing the unthinkable and winning Wimbledon in 2001 while ranked 126 in the world, and needing a wild card. Think Pete Sampras, stumbling around on the tour like a punch drunk fighter for over two years, then suddenly remembering what a great player he was as he blazed a trail to the US Open title in 2002. And more recently, Serena Williams, unseeded, out of shape and over the hill, or so we all thought. Before our disbelieving eyes, she defied all the normal criteria of sport, and a number 81 ranking in the world, to take the 2007 Australian Open title, beating guess who in the final? Maria Sharapova.
Maria Sharapova seems to have been around forever. She is in fact just 22 years old. She is now up to number 59 in the world.
She is not over the hill. She is not out of shape.
If she really, truly believes she can win Wimbledon, it will take something very special indeed to stop her. If she catches a hot streak, don’t be too surprised if she is in the opposite court to a Williams sister on the final Saturday of the tournament.
dandavehunter@gmail.com
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