Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova’s injured right shoulder received a lot of medical attention last year, but a player with plenty of fighting spirit is still learning how to re-tool her game and rebuild the form that carried her to three major championships.

The 2010 Australian Open began on Monday in Melbourne, with stormy skies and soggy weather forcing Sharapova’s opening-round match to be played under a closed roof at Rod Laver Arena. The lack of wind figured to clean up the 14th seed’s groundstrokes, but in an extended battle with Russian compatriot Maria Kirilenko, it became clear that Sharapova’s weapons still can’t be aimed with all that much accuracy.

Sharapova hit harder than Kirilenko, but not better. Yuri Sharapov’s wealthy daughter – fresh from signing a new eight-year, $70 million apparel deal with Nike – didn’t exactly play like 70 million bucks… or even one million dollars. In a country encircled by water, Sharapova’s swings resembled an ocean spray of wayward movements.

For all her past successes, “Masha” couldn’t calibrate her shots in a match that lasted 3 hours and 22 minutes. Kirilenko’s level dipped in the second set, but since Sharapova lost her nerve in a first-set tiebreak and then in the final set of competition, an upset emerged at the very beginning of this fortnight Down Under.

The numbers told a grisly story on Monday afternoon. Sharapova served up 11 double faults, including one in the decisive game of the match, when the No. 14 seed served to stay in the fight at 4-5 in the third. Sharapova also committed a whopping 77 unforced errors. To put that figure in perspective, Kirilenko coughed up 41 unforced errors and hit 15 more errant shots than winners. Yet, those totals looked benign by comparison. Sharapova’s errors exceeded her winners by a count of 32.

That’s not the way a proud champion intended to return to the tennis tournament she missed in 2009.

Sharapova surprised everyone in the tennis community when she emerged from rehab and – with a knack for making third-set comebacks – somehow made her way to the quarterfinals of the 2009 French Open in Paris. The Russian superstar might have lacked a consistent serve with the requisite pop needed to pick up cheap points, but her first-rate defensive skills and world-class court coverage allowed her to thrive anyway. She did fall short at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, losing in the first week of each major event, but as 2010 beckoned, there was a sense that a combination of rest – physical, sure, but also mental – would create a more focused and flowing female tennis performer. The big stage of Australia heralded a brighter tomorrow for this central figure in the tennis constellation.

Safe to say, this loss will leave Sharapova, her coaches, hitting partner Michael Joyce, and the rest of her entourage scratching their heads, wondering what went wrong in the kind of marathon that this endlessly determined player typically manages to pull out. Sharapova, down 2-5 in the final set, fought her way to 4-5, but the serving struggles that have stood in her way cropped up at a very inopportune time. With a bunch of errors – including a tight crosscourt backhand at 4-5, 15-30, and then a sloppy crosscourt forehand on match point for Kirilenko – Sharapova lost control of her racquet… and lost an opportunity to proceed at this tournament. Her next match won’t occur in Melbourne; it will arrive at a later point on the 2010 tennis calendar.

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