Maria Sharapova Returns to Winning Ways

It was the opening match on the season for Maria Sharapova and she happens to beat the Swiss, Timea Bacsinszky in straight of the opening round of the Shenzhen Open. The fifth seed Russian slammed 23 winners on Timea’s court. Also, she held an early break in the opening set and the Swiss player committed four faults which costed her heavy. Sharapova wrapped up her 6-2, 7-6(3)  in one hour and 42 minutes. She got cold feet in the first set with her serves, but however, she won it comfortably. In the second set, the duo exchanged few breaks and extend the set to a  tiebreaker.

Prior to the tournament, the former World Number visited the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University. Over there she announced, “It’s been a long recovery from the shoulder injury. Maybe for the first few matches, I won’t feel great and I will need to improve with every match I play”. The Shenzhen Open is an important event for Sharapova as it ensures as a warm-up tournament for the Australian Open. “It’s been a few months since I’ve been out of playing competitively,” Sharapova uttered. “Considering the opponent and everything I had to go through today I think it was great practice for me”. Sharapova is loved by the people of Shenzhen, but up next, she will play the 17-year-old Chinese player, Wang Xinyu who won two junior Grand Slam events in doubles last season.

Meanwhile, on the other courts, Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova took off with 6-0, 6-1 win just 53 minutes over Ana Bogdan of Romania. She claimed it to be a wonderful beginning for the season. The Frenchwoman, Caroline Garcia suffered a straight sets loss to Serbia’s Ivana Jorovic 6-4, 6-2. The tournament will conclude on Saturday and the winner will bag US$750,000 as the prize money amount.