Maria Sharapova vs. Anastasia Rodionova: Opening round preview – Wimbledon Championships 2012
Reigning world number one, Maria Sharapova, is under the lime light since her comeback to the professional circuit at the start of this year. The Russian beauty diva has finally completed her Career Slam by bagging the French Open
crown earlier this month and now her eyes are all set to grab the coveted trophy at the Wimbledon Championships, a tournament which brought her career to an all-new rise way back in 2004.
The 25-year-old will lead the star-studded filed for the first time in Wimbledon, London, this week and will ignite her Grand Slam campaign on Monday. Sharapova will take on the 133rd ranked Australian starlet, Anastasia
Rodionova, in the opening round clash on the legendary Centre Court of the All England Tennis and Croquet Club.
Well, it is quite obvious that who is rated as the hot favourite for winning the opening round battle on Monday. A top ranked player, having won three championship titles to her name this year, including a Grand Slam crown in Paris,
facing a rival ranked 132 places below her. It says it all. Sharapova will be stepping onto the grass courts of Wimbledon with utmost authority and will ignite her mega campaign with all her guns blazing.
Rodionova is having a dismal season so far and her debilitating form does pose any threat to the reigning world number one. The 30-year-old Aussie veteran has own only 15 out of 33 matches she played this year, suffering defeats
on 18 occurrences. Rodionova is yet to bag her maiden championship title and facing a belligerent top seed opponent in the opening match will certainly exert even more pressure on her.
However, Sharapova hasn’t played a single match on the grass courts since her Roland Garros title victory and it is something which might cause some trouble to her. The Russian diva is one of the finest players on faster grassy
surface but the lack of practice might play its part in the matchup against Rodionova. Vastly experienced Sharapova will like to get her eye set in the game right from the beginning and if she finds her winning groove early, there is no force in the tennis
world that can halt her from racing to victory. She is very optimistic on reviving her 2004 Wimbledon title victory and hopes she can repeat the similar feat this time round as well.
“Of course it was reasonable for people to write me off because I was out of the game,” she said about the glorious moment she had here in 2004. “I’d just had shoulder surgery. And then, of course, my comeback story wasn’t like
I got back on the court and I won a grand slam. It took a lot of time, it took a lot of bad losses, it took a lot of bad days. It certainly didn’t come easy for me. I felt like I really deserve the French Open win because I worked so hard and I went through
so many tough days to get here. Now I’ll start to think about Wimbledon.”
Sharapova is hot favourite for winning the opening round in straight sets, as she is 4-0 against Rodionova in the all-time head-to-head series.
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