Maria Sharapova begins her clay court campaign with a 6-1, 6-3 win over qualifier Barbora Zahlavova Strycova at the Bausch & Lomb Championships in Amelia Island, Fla. This is Sharapova’s first appearance at the tournament.

The fifth-ranked Russian withdrew from last week’s Sony Ericsson Open, citing fatigue. She showed no signs of rust and looks ready to do some damage on clay. As we had reported earlier, Maria wears the the Nike Paris Tennis Tank and Skirt. While we’re all about the pleats, that skort isn’t looking so hot in action.

(photos by Bob Self for The Times Union)

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.teamwta.com%2Fmaria-sharapova-party-on-the-top-disaster-down-below%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Maria+Sharapova%3A+party+on+the+top%2C+disaster+down+below’;
addthis_pub = ”;

World number four Svetlana Kuznetsova will lead Russia’s Fed Cup team in next month’s semi-final against the United States in Moscow.

“We had an agreement with Kuznetsova and Sharapova that one of them would play against Israel and the other against the US,” Tarpishchev said. “Sharapova had already played in Tel Aviv, so now it’s Kuznetsova’s turn. It was sort of a trade-off because both of them have very busy schedules.

(more…)

ShareThis

In an interview with RBK TV Russia’s tennis boss Shamil Tarpischev has said that he has almost finalized the list of the Russian players for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. There are four spots available for Russia. Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Anna Chakvetadze are confirmed participants. For the last spot, Tarpischev said he still needed to make a decision between Elena Dementieva and Vera Zvonareva. As for the men’s side, things are more complicated. Since there are five players equally qualifying for the four available tickets– Nikolay Davydenko, Mikail Youzhny, Dmitry Tursunov, and Marat Safin. June 8th is the deadline for the submission of the final participants’ list.

ShareThis

From Maria Sharapova’s interview at Pacific Life Open.

Q. Ana Ivanovic yesterday spoke to us a lot about how she reads Freud, and she went on for about 10 minutes.
MARIA SHARAPOVA: How she what?

Q. Read Freud, Sigmund Freud, the psychologist.
MARIA SHARAPOVA: I don’t know who that is.

Q. The psychologist. Very famous?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Oh, psychologist, sorry.

ShareThis