Maria Sharapova eyes a gold medal at Olympics – Tennis News
Former world number one, Maria Sharapova, has set her sight on the Olympic gold medal at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, starting from Monday. She is the one of the strongest contenders to grab the Olympics gold medal at Wimbledon
and possibly complete her gold career slams.
She has already accomplished the latter part by completing the Career Slam at the final of the Roland Garros French Open in Paris, France. She outclassed the likes of the Italian superstar, Sara Errani, who registered several upsets
to reach the final showdown but couldn’t hold on the hard-hitting Russian from taking the missing crown of her career.
Sharapova was just 17-year-old when she stunned the world by overpowering the-then best player of the world, Serena Williams, in the final of the Wimbledon Championships in 2004. It was the first ever Grand Slam for the Russian
and that day marked the stupendous career that is witnessed in the following years.
She will be accompanying the likes of the Vera Zvonareva and the doubles specialist team of Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova who will also contest in the singles category of the world. Russia is the only country who clean swept
the Olympics medals category in the previous edition of the Olympics at Beijing, China. Elena Dementieva, Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva grabbed the gold, silver and bronze medal respectively to register the first ever clean sweep in the history of the Olympics.
Sharapova is looking to repeat a similar performance. She commented, “It’s been a dream of mine since I was very young. Tennis in Russia when I was growing up till the age of seven was not very big. Over the years, you’ve seen
how successful it has become in my country and now how important it is to be a tennis player as part of the Olympics. Also it will be my first one so I really can’t wait.”
She is a flag bearer for Russia as well. Commenting about that, she stated, “It was huge. I had to read the text message five times and read it to other people to make sure I got it right.” Considering the enthusiasm of the Russians,
the possibility of the repeat is there.
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