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“I Admire Her” – Maria Sharapova Praises Caroline Wozniacki Ahead of Retirement

Published 01/21/2020, 11:29 AM EST

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The win-less streak at Grand Slams from the 2019 season continues for Maria Sharapova in 2020. She last won a major-match against Caroline Wozniacki in the third round of Australian Open 2019. The Dane, Wozniacki will be soon bidding goodbye to professional tennis and Sharapova is simply in awe with her personality and career.

Former World Number one Wozniacki trained hard during the 2019’s off-season break. She was scheduled to play just two tournaments in 2020, the first one in Auckland and the next one in Melbourne. For that, she dedicated the entire off-season for her final stay as a tennis professional in Australia.

“She’s had an amazing career. I just found her amazing that she’s gone through the whole off-season just to play two more events. That’s a really good effort because off-seasons are not easy, I admire her for that,” Maria Sharapova said.

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“She was a challenging opponent” – Maria Sharapova 

The five-time Grand Slam champion Sharapova calls Wozniacki a ‘challenging opponent’ on the WTA Tour. They have played each other 11 times in their careers. The Russian holds an upper-hand in their head-to-head victories as she has won seven times against her.

Wozniacki’s defensive style of tennis and aggressive footwork gave Sharapova a tough time on the court. Their match at the 2014 WTA Championships is one of their revered meetings. In that encounter, Sharapova won 7-6(4) 6-7(5) 6-2. “She’s done really well and she was always a really challenging opponent for me,” Maria Sharapova mentioned.

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World Number 36 Wozniacki will hang her racquets after her last match at Australian Open 2020. She is through to the second round in Melbourne and will take on the 23rd seed Dayana Yastremska from Ukraine.

 

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As Sharapova’s poor form on the WTA Tour continues, she drops out of the Top 350 WTA rankings after her early exit from at Australian Open 2020. For the Melbourne major, the Russian was given a wildcard and she thanked the tournament organizers for the same. 

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Mahalakshmi Murali

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Mahalakshmi Murali joined EssentiallySports in 2018 as a tennis author and has gone on to pen more than 1800 engaging articles, probing into various aspects of the sport and its illustrious players. With her expertise on the sport, Mahalakshmi has interviewed stalwarts from the sport such as Serena WIlliams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou and Kevin Anderson’s physio, Carlos Costa. Equipped with her vast experience and a keen understanding of the sport, Mahalakshmi now co-heads the tennis department.
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