Sharapova To Skip New Haven

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 15th August 2013

Sharapova To Skip New Haven

epa03761300 Maria Sharapova of Russia facing defeat at the hands of Michelle Larcher De Brito of Portugal during their second round match for the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, in London, Britain, 26 June 2013. EPA/ANDY RAIN |

Maria Sharapova has opted against taking a wild card entry into next week’s New Haven Open, regardless of the fact she is woefully short of match practice and her first competitive outing under the coaching guidance of Jimmy Connors in Cincinnati this week ended in defeat.

An injured hip meant the world no.3 had not played since losing in the second round of Wimbledon so her second round defeat in the Western and Southern Open to Sloane Stephens didn’t come as a huge surprise.

However the fact the 2006 US Open champion has only played three matches in the past seven weeks does not seem to augur well for success in New York.

By tradition Sharapova does not like to play in the week prior to a Grand Slam tournament, and she said: “I’m planning on playing a lot of matches in New York, and just for the body it’s tough to play a week before if you’re planning on doing extremely well in that event.

“I’ve just never done it in my career, so why start now? I’ll probably go to Florida. I train there a lot. I have a home there, so pretty close.”

Sharapova’s lack of match practice was hugely apparent as she struggled to find any rhythm as she lost 2-6, 7-6, 6-3 to world no.15 Stephens. “I started the match off pretty well, but when you put yourself in a really good position you can’t let it go and that’s what I did,” she said.

“I didn’t continue what I was doing well for the first set and a half, and that hurt me. I stopped being patient. I started making a lot more errors, especially off the first ball. Just errors that I shouldn’t make.”