Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova; born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player. A United States resident since 1994, Sharapova has competed on the WTA tour since 2001. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the WTA on five separate occasions, for a total of 21 weeks. She is one of ten women, and the only Russian, to hold the career Grand Slam. She is also an Olympic medalist, having earned silver for Russia in women's singles...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionTennis Player
Date of Birth19 April 1987
CityNyagan, Russia
CountryRussian Federation
Reaching the No. 1 ranking has been a lifelong goal of mine, and achieving it here in Los Angeles would have been a dream come true. I am eager to get back to feeling 100 percent healthy and playing as soon as possible.
I got off to a great start and then maybe I wasn't aggressive enough and let her into the match in the second set. I don't know exactly what happened, I just lost my concentration a bit, but was able to get back on track in the final set.
It's disappointing but no hard feelings, ... I know you can't win everything and you're going to lose sometimes. I'll go home and train now and get ready for the U.S. Open.
It was disappointing to lose today, but it won't have any impact on my game in China,
It was a very tough match. I came here to win and didn't want to lose early, so I'm relieved to have that first win.
A couple of points in the third set made a difference to the end result, ... When I was 1-5 down, I played very relaxed and tied the score but at 5-all, she held her serve after she had a couple of lucky points and it turned her way. I should forget this loss because I had two good weeks in Russia and will take positive things from my game today.
I was in that period right after I won Wimbledon, ... The next four months, I felt like I had to win every match. It's a matter of telling yourself that it's impossible to win everything ? no matter what people say. You can't control people's actions. My big thing is to just keep working hard. Because one day, you're going to be on court and you'll win a match and realize that the hard work paid off. That's exactly what I did last year. I lost here and I worked my butt off.
When you come off the court and you feel like you were losing the whole match, and all of a sudden you pulled it out, you know, it's those moments that you feel you've trained for and you work hard for. Just lucky to get through.
You control your own wins and losses.
I do not have revenge on my mind, but I don't like losing to the same player twice in a row. Martina played some amazing tennis in Tokyo, but it is a different match tomorrow.
The score doesn't say much about the match,
I've said this like 30 times. I feel like I'm saying it again. The physical part of my game is very important right now. It's what I'm working on. That's what's been improving. I mean, if you look at me a year ago, I don't think I was at this point physically. It didn't take five days, it didn't take a month. It took a whole year to progress and get better.
It would be amazing if I could win here as it's the toughest Grand Slam to win, just because of the traffic.
It was up and down. I felt a little awkward in some situations because I haven't been match tough lately. I'm absolutely exhausted.