Second Wimbledon title to elude Maria Sharapova
In 2004, a 17-year-old Maria Sharapova celebrated her maiden Grand Slam title on the lawns at Wimbledon, but six years later it’s hard to see the Russian reaching the second week of the competition.
Sharapova enters Wimbledon this year as one of three past champions in the draw, along with defending champion Serena Williams and five-time winner Venus Williams, but unlike the Williams sisters, it’s tough to see the glamorous blonde holding the Venus Rosewater Dish aloft in 2010.
While the former world No. 1 hasn’t experienced the inexplicable form slump and loss of confidence that has beset 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic over the past 18 months, injury has curtailed Sharapova’s game over the same timeframe.
The 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open followed that breakthrough 6-1, 6-4 victory over Serena in the 2004 Wimbledon final, but that Grand Slam title in Melbourne was followed by a rotator-cuff injury to her shoulder that forced Sharapova to miss the Beijing Olympics, the 2008 US Open and, after undergoing shoulder surgery in October 2008, her chance to defend the Australian Open title in 2009.
The aggressive baseliner hasn’t quite been the same since returning to the WTA singles circuit in May last year, and with an elbow injury interrupting her season this year, the world No. 17 is now struggling to keep pace with other players in the upper echelons of the rankings.
An enforced change to Sharapova’s previously tried and trusted service action as a result of her shoulder problems hasn’t helped the situation, and that weakened serve played its part in her loss in the final of last week’s Aegon Classic in Birmingham.
After defeating a string of opponents ranked somewhere between world No. 86 and world No. 185 to reach the Aegon Classic decider, Sharapova finally faced some higher ranked competition in the final, in the form of world No. 11 Na Li.
Li, who was a Wimbledon quarter-finalist in 2006, claimed a straight sets victory over Sharapova and her first grass court title as the Russian struggled with her service game and the Chinese player began to take control of proceedings was also outhit in the baseline rallies.
The fact is, the highest ranked player Sharapova has defeated this year was ranked 43rd in the world; the two titles the 23-year-old has won this year were in tournaments most of the world’s best players shunned. Her last victory against a top-10 player came against Victoria Azarenka in Beijing last October.
Sharapova was the only player ranked inside the top-50 at the Cellular South Cup in Memphis earlier this year, and the top seed duly won the title in a week where eight of the world’s top 10 were locked in battle at the Dubai Tennis Championships.
Sharapova was similarly the big fish in a small pond when she collected another 250 ranking points on clay at the Internationaux de Strasbourg on the eve of the French Open.
The moral of the story is this: don’t judge this triple Grand Slam champion on the titles she’s won this year, but on the opposition she’s faced to win them.
There’s no doubt Sharapova retains the mental toughness that took her to the top of the world back in 2005 – her fighting performance to force her third-round match against Justine Henin at the French Open into a third set and then create four break points to go 3-0 up in the deciding set is a prime example of that – but it’s the ability to close out victory against the big guns (she ultimately lost that match) that now seems to have become a lot more difficult.
And as Sharapova continues to work on rebuilding her game, it’s tough to see her stay at Wimbledon this year extending much beyond the first week of play.
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