The former World Number one from Russia, Maria Sharapova gathered a decent crowd on the Center Court of Santa Ponsa Tennis Academy, Mallorca as she stepped on to the professional tennis courts after four months due to a prolonged a shoulder injury.

Maria Sharapova defeated her eleven-year younger opponent, Viktoria Kuzmova from Slovakia, 7-6(8), 6-0 in her opening match at Mallorca Open 2019. In the beginning, Maria Sharapova could take a 2-0, but the Slovak bounced back to maintain the equilibrium in the opening set.

Both of them came up with unplayable forehand winners and the set wasn’t tilting towards either of them until the end. Kuzmova could flip the set, at 6-5 by breaking Sharapova’s serve, but the battling to stay in the set, the Russian drove it to the tiebreaker.

Maria Sharapova and Viktoria Kuzmova executed exhilarating tennis in the tiebreaker, and the 21-year-old Slovak also held set points. With Sharapova displaying her experience on the sealed the opening set as Kuzmova netted the ball on Russian’s set point. 

The second was unconditionally different from the previous one. As Kuzmova came up with a series of double faults and that benefitted the World Number 86, Maria Sharapova, to dominate in the second set. She fed her opponent a bagel and advanced into the second round at the Mallorca Open 2019.

“My shoulder is doing well. I took this time in order to come back to my first event and feel like I have a really good chance at it,” Maria Sharapova said before starting her run in Mallorca. “Being away from the game for a few months is always challenging because you miss a lot of things, but from a shoulder perspective, I’m giving it a really good chance here. Every match is going to be a really good test.”