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Serious business starts for Sharapova
(abcnews.go.com)
Updated: 2005-06-17 10:58
Maria Sharapova has become a multi-million-dollar industry since her stunning
Wimbledon triumph a year ago when she demolished Serena Williams in the final.
Maria Sharapova,
pictured at the French Open, is set to resume her reign at Wimbledon but
three former winners and two battling Belgians stand in the way.
[AFP] |
Lucrative contracts and modeling assignments have rolled in for the
statuesque, 18-year-old Siberian. Marketing executives queue up for a slice of
the action and Sharapova has even launched her own brand of perfume.
Next week, though, is all about tennis and Maria the businesswoman will be
consigned firmly to the locker room when Sharapova walks out on Center Court
Tuesday to begin the defense of her title against Spain's Nuria Llagostera
Vives.
Maria the fiercely competitive tennis player, with her nerves of steel and
icy stare, will have only one objective — proving that last year was no flash in
the pan.
It will be a tough assignment, even for a young woman who sacrificed a normal
childhood at the age of nine, left her mother and arrived in Florida with just a
handful of dollars.
Before a couple of days of "retail therapy" in London, Sharapova completed
her Wimbledon warm-up by retaining her title in Edgbaston, stretching an
unbeaten run on grass to 17.
However there were times when the Russian world number two, suffering from a
cold and aching limbs, appeared distinctly ill at ease with her game.
Three times she was pushed to a deciding set as her game see-sawed between
spectacular winners and elementary errors.
LIKELY OPPONENTS
Sharapova is unlikely to change her all-or-nothing approach on the slick
Wimbledon grass, although tactically she will have to smarten up if she is to
fend off the challenge of her main title rivals.
Two of those lurk in her half of the draw, with fourth seed Serena Williams
or rejuvenated Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne, seeded seven, her likely
semi-final opponents.
Twice former champion Williams, who missed the French Open with an ankle
injury, is likely to make as big an impact with her latest outfit as her tennis,
although the powerful American will be hard to stop if she survives the opening
rounds.
their words once this year after Serena captured the Australian Open title in
January.
Henin-Hardenne, who tuned 23 just before claiming her second French Open
title earlier this month, outclassed Sharapova in the quarter-finals at Roland
Garros.
With an energy-sapping viral infection and niggling injuries now behind her,
Henin-Hardenne will relish the prospect of completing her haul of all four grand
slam titles, having lost at Wimbledon to Venus Williams in the 2001 final.
"I'm not worried about playing her," Sharapova said when asked if
Henin-Hardenne was the player she feared most. "I played Justine on her favorite
surface (in Paris).
"On grass everything is faster, the points are shorter.
"I'll push myself harder and harder because this is my favorite tournament."
INJURY FREE
With so much focus on the bottom half of the draw, world number one and top
seed Lindsay Davenport can expect to rumble through the top section relatively
untroubled.
The 29-year-old American, winner here in 1999, is relaxed and injury free and
will be a major threat after reaching the final of the Australian Open and the
last eight at Roland Garros.
Sharapova aside, several Russians will provide a heavyweight challenge this
year.
U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, who had two matchpoints against
Henin-Hardenne at the French Open, is armed with the most destructive serve in
women's tennis.
Anastasia Myskina, the 2004 French Open champion, has endured a miserable
year but a return to anywhere near her best form would take her through to the
latter stages.
Of the other favorites, Belgium's fit-again Kim Clijsters, who missed last
year's tournament with a wrist injury, will surely make an impact, although the
progress of third seed Amelie Mauresmo is difficult to predict.
Blessed with sublime shot-making skills, the enigmatic, 25-year-old
Frenchwoman has the perfect grasscourt game, although she has become a serial
under-achiever at the grand slams and lost to a qualifier in her first match in
Eastbourne this week.
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