Maria's looking up
Posted by RSVP on
It seems like eons ago that Maria Sharapova played the tournament of her life and won her first Australian Open title in 2008.Then, the statuesque Russian came roaring out of the gates and never faltered, crushing a standout field of high level foes that included three-time Grand Slam champ Lindsay Davenport, two-time Slam finalist Elena Dementieva, top-ranked Justine Henin, the new No. 1 Jelena Jankovic and Roland Garros champion-to-be Ana Ivanovic 7-5, 6-3 in the final.
The aggressive power baller had won two majors before (2004 Wimbledon and the 2006 US Open) but she had never taken down so many elite performers before in succession, losing just 32 games in seven matches. The tournament was a true awakening for Sharapova who, saddled with a problem shoulder, had a difficult 2007 as she was blown out by Serena Williams in the Australian Open final, was bullied by Ivanovic in the French Open semis, was run over by Venus Williams at Wimbledon and then, in the biggest shocker of her career, was made to look clumsy by the teenager Agnieszka Radwanska at the US Open.
"That was horrific tennis," Sharapova said. "It kept rolling and rolling and you think good things were going to happen and they will, but it seemed like no good things were happening. There were so many setbacks and I was left in so many tough situations. You have to appreciate every single moment you have, which is why this one is so much sweeter. When I was going through all those setbacks I tried to remember what it was like to hold those Wimbledon and US Open trophies and know that I was capable doing before and doing it again."
Sharapova's coach and close friend, Michael Joyce, said that the hard life lessons she was given actually ended up aiding his student and friend. "Sometimes those downs actually help you to shoot back up, and a young girl like her, who hasn't been through a lot of ups and downs, it's been mostly up, up, up, but I kept telling her it's going to make you stronger, it's going to make you stronger, and obviously it has."
Sharapova learned a lot in 2007, not just about what she needed to do to improve her overall game without her massive serve to bail her out, but how to deal with personal loss. She had grown very close to Joyce's mother, Jane, who passed away in the spring of 2007 after a long battle with cancer.
"Maria kind of went through the roller-coaster, and I think having such a hard year last year with her injuries, in a way that put things into perspective for her, and at the end of last year when she was still struggling, we just kept talking about it and just saying there's so much more to life than just winning or losing tennis matches," Joyce said. "For a young girl at her age, sometimes when you're there it's the biggest thing, and when you go through something like that I think it puts things in perspective a little more, so maybe my Mum was helping her from up above."
After she raised the trophy in Melbourne last January, Sharapova put on a near-perfect first time Fed Cup performance against Israel and then after a title run in Doha, it look liked she was well on her way to her first dominant year.
But in March, Sharapova re-injured her shoulder at Indian Wells when stretching for a backhand against Alona Bondarenko. She re-aggravated the injury playing at Amelia Island, where she won her first clay court title, and in Charleston, where she lost in the quarters. Cortisone injections kept her from playing in severe pain and she soldiered on, losing a titanic three-setter to Dinara Safina at the French Open and then suffering a surprising loss to Alla Kudryavtseva at Wimbledon.
The 21-year-old was only able contest one more match after that, in Montreal, and with the pain in her wing increasing daily and unable to serve with power, she went to visit a shoulder specialist and discovered that she had been playing with a moderate tear in her rotator cuff tendon since April.
Sharapova's season was finished and she was none too pleased. In September, while visiting New York, she said that she was so anxious to get back on court that she was willing to hold practice sessions playing left handed. Early in December, she was able to resume full-time training and her practice sessions are said to have been intense.
She'll play an exhibition in Hong Kong along with Venus Williams, Jelena Jankovic and Sania Mirza January 7-10, and then head to Melbourne to prepare for a strident title defence.
"I need to move forward and stay positive," Sharapova said. "I am going to work hard to get healthy. Once I'm healthy, I'm sure I'll look at this as a blessing in disguise."
read more about the latest Australian Open news.