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Post by Admin on Jun 21, 2014 0:03:05 GMT
It has been 10 years since Sharapova, as a hardly unlucky 13th seed, upset the former Wimbledon champion Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals and then the defending Wimbledon champion Serena Williams in the final. “Don’t let that beautiful smile and those eyes fool you,” her occasional mentor Nick Bollettieri said of the Russian teenager at the time. “She’s as competitive as anybody in the world.” That has been confirmed over the seasons, the comebacks and the tight matches, even if few of those have come against Williams, who has beaten Sharapova 16 times in 18 career matches. “I think the competition is a drug for Maria,” said Max Eisenbud, her longtime agent. “And when her career is over, it’s something that will be such a big void for her. At 4-all, 30-all in the third in the late rounds of a Grand Slam, it’s like her dream. For most people it’s their nightmare.” Last year, after losing in the second round to the 131st-ranked Michelle Larcher de Brito, she soon found herself in a London clinic, undergoing platelet-rich plasma injections to try to address severe pain in her right shoulder. “The day after I lost,” Sharapova said. That round of treatment did not resolve the problem, and there would be plenty more treatments as she played just one more match the rest of the year. It is easy to forget that period of doubt at this happy stage. She has won 19 of her last 20 matches and she has just shrieked and battled through a series of tough three-setters to win her second French Open title. “I’m very loose jointed, so if changes come — changes of weather, changes of balls — I am quite sensitive to that,” she said in a recent interview. “And I think everything just kind of piled on. Usually when that happens, we’ve been able to manage the pain, and I’ve played many matches since I’ve had surgery where I have some pain but been able to manage it. But it just got worse and worse.” No surgery would be required this time for her inflamed shoulder, just rest, rehabilitation and another long layoff, which she used to hire three new members of her team: The Dutch coach Sven Groeneveld, the German hitting coach Dieter Kindlmann and the French physiotherapist Jérôme Bianchi, who once helped keep Amélie Mauresmo healthy. Those three men were locked in a celebratory embrace in the stands in Paris this month after Sharapova held off Simona Halep in the French Open final, and Sharapova soon joined them in the stands. “When we all got together and little by little started working together, I realized that there was really good energy,” she said. “It’s like everyone worked together, and this is such a huge piece of the puzzle as a professional athlete. You are the one competing, but the team atmosphere is so important.”
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Post by Admin on Jun 21, 2014 22:50:37 GMT
Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard is the only woman to reach the semifinals in each of this year's two Grand Slam events, but to make it three times she'll likely have to beat at least one of the sport's giants. The Westmount, Que., native was placed in the same quarter of the Wimbledon draw on Friday as five-time tournament winner Serena Williams and 2004 champion Maria Sharapova. Bouchard, seeded 13th, could face Williams in the round of 16. Sharapova, who just won the French Open title, wouldn't be an opponent until the quarter-finals. Bouchard begins the tournament against Slovakian veteran Daniela Hantuchova. In her debut appearance as a pro at Wimbledon, Bouchard made it to the third round last year. Andy Murray will start the defence of his Wimbledon title against David Goffin of Belgium and could face top-seeded Novak Djokovic in a rematch of last year's final, albeit in the semifinals. Murray, who became the first British player to win at Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936 last summer, has never played the 104th-ranked Goffin. Djokovic, for his part, won Wimbledon in 2011. In the absence of women's defending champion Marion Bartoli, who retired less than six weeks after winning her sole Grand Slam title, last year's runner-up finalist Sabine Lisicki will open Centre Court play on Tuesday against Julia Glushko. The other potential women's quarter-finals are: Simona Halep vs. Jelena Jankovic, Victoria Azarenka vs. Agnieszka Radwanska, and 2011 champ Petra Kvitova vs. Li Na.
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Post by Admin on Jun 22, 2014 22:53:21 GMT
Rafael Nadal hasn’t won back-to-back matches at the All England Club since he lost the final to Novak Djokovic in 2011, but he insists that he feels much better coming into Wimbledon this year compared to the last two. The two-time champion lost in the first round to Belgian journeyman Steve Darcis last year. The year before he was blasted off the court by Lukas Rosol. This year Nadal gears up for Wimbledon having lost the only grass court match he’s played, a straight set defeat at the hands of Dustin Brown last week in Halle, Germany. “Personally I feel that I am doing things better,” Nadal told reporters during his pre-tournament press conference on Saturday. “I am able to move myself more free now. I’m not scared about my knee. That’s the most important thing for me. But then it is true for the last couple of years I didn’t play a lot of matches on grass. But I am confident that I can do it again. Not talking about [winning], talking about [playing] better than what I did last couple of years on grass.” “When I arrived to Roland Garros I already played for one month on clay,” Nadal said. “I played a lot of matches. So more or less I can imagine how I am going to play. U.S. Open is the same. Australia, [it's] true that it is the beginning of the season, but is a surface that we know so it is not a dramatic change, no? Here, yes. Especially the beginning of the tournament the courts are a little bit faster. The feeling on court is a little bit strange for everybody. Especially the top players have really more pressure.” Seven-time champion Roger Federer agreed. “I think [Nadal] might be slightly more vulnerable in the early rounds, but [just] like most of the guys,” Federer said. “This new, fresh, lush grass — we’re not quite used to it. As you go deeper in the tournament, it becomes more clay ‘courty,’ hard ‘courty,’ with a bit of grass on it. It’s easier to move. The ball bounces a bit higher; it becomes more what we’re used to. I think the early rounds are key for most of the top guys. I think we’re talking about the first two rounds in particular. “ Added Novak Djokovic: “It’s very tricky for top players. Still you don’t feel comfortable. The players you are playing against who are lower ranked, they have played a tournament or two before coming in so they have more matches. They have nothing to lose.” This year, Nadal opens against Martin Klizan on Tuesday, with a rematch against Lukas Rosol possible in the second round. “If you are able to win a few matches, you have the feeling you are in the tournament and everything becomes a little bit more logical,” Nadal said. “The sport in general is about victories, [it's] not about losses,” Nadal said. “That’s my feeling. In the end, everybody remembers the winner. Everybody remembers the victories and nobody remembers the losses. So it doesn’t matter if you play so badly for two months and you lose eight first rounds in a row and then you arrive to Wimbledon and you win Wimbledon. Nobody will remember about that two months that you played bad. Everybody will remember about your victory in Wimbledon. That’s sport. The winner takes it all.”
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2014 21:51:26 GMT
Sloane Stephens, 21, is one of the brightest young talents in women's tennis. Although she doesn't have a WTA singles title yet, she has played particularly well at Grand Slam tournaments. That is, until Monday's opening-round match at Wimbledon, where Maria Kirilenko of Russia eliminated the 18th-seeded Stephens in a 6-2, 7-6 (8-6) upset. On the grass courts of the All England Club, even the most formidable contenders aren't safe. Odd bounces on the unique surface can be difficult to adjust to, but credit should go to Kirilenko for how well she played. Kirilenko may not be seeded, but as The New York Times' Ben Rothenberg pointed out during the match, she has been near the top of the sport before. The key stat of the opening set was that Stephens hit 73 percent of her first serves in play, according to Wimbledon.com, yet only managed to win half of those points. She had one chance to break Kirilenko and didn't convert. A shaky ratio of winners to unforced errors (15-13) wound up being Stephens' undoing in the decisive set. She pushed Kirilenko to a tiebreaker and even fought off six of seven break points in the second—including five match points before the tiebreak. Stephens has been as high as 11th in the rankings, but she has just a 16-14 record for the 2014 season. The young American has plenty of time to turn it around, but it is discouraging that she can't string together better results given her all-court ability.
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Post by Admin on Jun 24, 2014 22:10:48 GMT
French Open champion Maria Sharapova brushed off early hiccups with her serve to ease past British hope Samantha Murray in straight sets. Fifth seed Sharapova indicated exactly why she sits 242 world ranking places ahead of 26-year-old Murray, coasting home 6-1 6-0 on Tuesday. Stockport's Murray produced several smart winners, but wasted three break points in the first set, and never recovered. Sharapova's routine victory will have gone some way to exorcising last year's lacklustre second-round exit at the hands of Portuguese qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito. The 2004 champion exerted her five-time grand slam-winning class to consign wild card entrant Murray to a second successive first-round Wimbledon exit. Sharapova's rusty serve raised immediate problems, the frustrated Russian facing an immediate break point thanks to three double faults. Unable to capitalise on that early chance, Murray held her opening service game - only to let another break point slip in the very next game. Murray's nerves bit as she dropped a straightforward game-winning volley into the net next, en route to handing Sharapova the first service break.
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