???Let’s be honest: If this match kicked things off at the Australian Open’s Rod Laver Arena, it owes less to the matchup and more to the pinup.
That’s no disrespect to Maria Sharapova, who’s more—way more—than just a pretty face plastered on billboards around the world to sell expensive watches and cars. She’s a three-time Grand Slam singles champion, former world No. 1 and one of two women in Melbourne who’s won this tournament before.
It’s also no disrespect to Tamarine Tanasugarn, who’s playing her 15th straight Australian Open. (That’s more than anyone else in the field.) She’s been as far as the Wimbledon quarterfinals and won a singles title last year, the only player above 30 years of age to do so.
But since Sharapova entered this contest in with a 3-0 head-to-head lead over Tanasugarn and since she is, after all, Maria Sharapova, many didn’t expect this to be close. One website even provided a likely start time for the next match based on the assumption that “Sharapova will need 70 minutes or so to defeat Tanasugarn”.
Which turned out to be about right. It took eight minutes longer, but Sharapova, playing with a new racquet and a new coach, did defeat her opponent with relative ease, 6-1, 6-3. In doing so she won her first match in Melbourne since she won the title here three years ago.
Sharapova was always in control but—where her serving was concerned—sometimes not in a good way. She started the match with two double faults and went on to lose the first game at love. (A commentator dramatically said a player “can’t start a match or a season more negatively.”) It didn’t seem to affect her though, as went on to take the next six games. Sharapova's typically fierce groundstrokes, which mostly found their marks, gave Tanasugarn little chance. And Tanasugarn didn’t move well, making Sharapova’s shots look that much more lethal.
The second set was a bit rougher, owing to Sharapova’s seven double faults. That brought her total double fault count to 10. While she can’t be happy with that, she should be pleased by how much she dictated the contest. Both players had the same number of unforced errors (22), but Sharapova hit a whopping 24 more winners (5 to 29).
A Sharapova match, especially at a Slam, is rarely watched just for the tennis. And so some quick notes on the other stuff: No, she didn’t wear that gigantic engagement ring from fiancé Sasha Vujacic, fearful perhaps that it would weigh her down. Yes, the new peach and gray Nike dress looked classy. And the Frank Gehry-designed Tiffany earrings were definitely less blinged-out than I expected.
In what may be less important news to some, Sharapova will next play either unseeded Elena Vesnina or Virginie Razzano.
—Bobby Chintapalli
?