[新聞] Sharapova's road to recovery only ju …
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by Matt Cronin, FOXSports.com
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."
※ 編輯: jcshie 來自: 60.199.247.201 (06/25 15:59)
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