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Sharapova's road to recovery only just beginning

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Updated Jun 24, 2009 7:21 PM ET
     
 

WIMBLEDON, England

Deep down, Maria Sharapova believes that her money shots will return sometime soon, that she'll be able to impose herself again and rediscover the right kind of attack and consistency that once brought her to No. 1 in the world. But on Wednesday at Wimbledon, Sharapova showed that she's still a long way from the form that made her one the world's most threatening players, even as recently as the start of 2008, when she could tear the cover off the ball and dominate her foes with blitzing serves, returns and groundstrokes. In her 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 second-round loss to Gisela Dulko at Wimbledon on Wednesday, the three-time Grand Slam champion only showed her best stuff on occasion, as she was often slow of foot, unable to torch serves, knock off volleys, or gain control off the ground. She defined the word "pressing." "There's no real gray area today," said Sharapova, the 2004 champion here. "I had so many easy balls, and I just made unforced errors from those. I don't really know if that's because I haven't played. When I've had those situations before those balls would be pieces of cake, and today they weren't." Like she did in Paris, Sharapova fought hard, but this time, after snarling back from a 6-3, 3-0 deficit and winning seven straight games, Sharapova lost her rhythm once again. The creative Dulko mixed up her shots, took pace off the ball, served intelligently and passed the tall Russian at the net again and again. If not for a series of blinding returns of serves and an occasional sharp groundstroke, Sharapova might have gone quietly into the night, because there wasn't another portion of her game that she seemed to have faith in. Due to severe lack of match play, her "tennis" legs aren't strong enough yet and she clearly lost pace off her shots in the final set. But despite that, she still had chances. After fighting off two break points to go ahead 3-2 in the third set, she appeared poised to pounce, as she went up 0-30 on Dulko's serve. But then she uncharacteristically missed two easy returns and the charged-up Argentine held on a vicious backhand down the line. Then Sharapova — who is still having trouble serving since her shoulder surgery last October — was immediately broken to 4-3. She was clearly straining on a sunny and windy day, but the 45th-ranked Dulko still hadn't closed it out yet. A more-than-competent player who reached a career high No. 25 in 2005, Dulko is no slouch but is known more for losing close matches to elite players than for winning them — like at this year's Australian Open, when she let go of five set points against eventual champ Serena Williams. She had a hellacious time shutting down Sharapova, needing five match points to do so. After letting go of her fourth match point on a forehand error and then tossing a passing shot into the bottom of the net, it looked like her nerves might get the best of her. But Sharapova gave one back on a break point, netting an easy backhand. The Russian then just missed a forehand down the line and on match point, flew another forehand long. "It was best win of my life," Dulko said. "To get a win over Maria on Centre Court and to overcome emotions in that situation — my legs were shaking in the last game. I've always been working for this. More than playing well, it's been a change of mentality for me." The tale of the tape was indicative of Sharapova's troubles: she nailed 30 winners, but committed 27 unforced errors; won only 11 of 29 of her second serve points; converted only 4 of 11 break point opportunities; and get this, she only averaged 100 miles per hour on her first serves. "I just couldn't go up and hit the serve with the same velocity as the first two sets," said Sharapova, who served nine double faults. "I thought I served pretty good in the first couple sets. My percentage was low. But as far as pace, I thought it really slowed down. I didn't have enough juice on it."
Sharapova credited Dulko for making her bend low with deft slice shots and confounding her with cute angles, but she knows that there were a number of balls she should have put away. "I'm not gonna take anything away from how she played," she said. "She tactically played really smart. For a set and a half she had a lot of variety in her game, she chipped a lot of balls back, but I started getting onto that. My bigger shots didn't allow her to do that anymore. But I do feel like I took a little bit off the ball and wasn't going for as much. I don't know why." As great as the 22-year-old Sharapova has been, she's never faced a challenge the size that she is now: nine months off the tour due to shoulder trouble and undergoing a massive amount of rehab, while the other players were able to work day in and day out on improving. As she said earlier in the week, no one cares about her résumé, only about how heavy and accurate her balls are. "I think there was such a big change in my life, such a big layoff, that it's hard," she said. It sure has been, but really, Wimbledon is only her fourth tournament since last August and she shouldn't be expected to produce major results yet. As disappointing as her four losses haven been since her mid-May comeback, she's also won 12 matches, which means that even at 60 percent of her ability, she is still better than 75 percent of the tour. Both she and her coach, Michael Joyce, believe that what she really needs is more match play, where she can work out the wrinkles, get on the ball earlier and re-learn what it is that made her a superior player. The road will be long and arduous and she's sure to suffer more bumps and bruises, but when she arrives in New York at the end of August, Sharapova likely have more answers than questions. "It's obviously unfortunate that I couldn't play more matches here," she said. "But I just have to look forward to the next few tournaments and work hard on the court, go out, play the few tournaments and hopefully be ready for the U.S. Open. This is not an overnight process. It's gonna take time, to get everything together. As much time as it needs, I'm ready for it."

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