Sharapova to play qualifiers in bid to be at Wimbledon

Russian to compete at Roehampton in bid to earn place in main draw for SW19

Maria Sharapova has announced she will not seek a wild card into Wimbledon’s main draw and will instead play the qualifying rounds to secure her place.

The Russian was denied a return to grand slam tennis at the French Open following her 15-month doping ban. The French Tennis Federation this week decided against offering her a wild card either to the main draw or to qualifying.

Now Sharapova has taken the decision on whether to give her a Wimbledon main draw wild card out of the hands of organisers by backing herself to come through the preliminaries, which take place at Roehampton in the week leading up to the grass-court major.

In a statement on her website, titled ‘An update on my grass court tournament schedule’, Sharapova said: “A few months ago, I received a wild card offer from Birmingham, one of my most memorable tournaments as a young player. I am so grateful and excited to be playing this event again.

“Because of my improved ranking after the first three tournaments of my return, I will also be playing the qualifying of Wimbledon in Roehampton, and will not be requesting a wild card into the main draw.”

Sharapova guaranteed she would be clear to enter the Wimbledon qualifiers by winning a first-round match against American Christina McHale at the Italian Open on Monday, before retiring injured in the third set against Mirjana Lucic-Baroni a day later.

That came hours after the French tennis authorities turned her down for Roland Garros, saying it would be wrong to hand a wild card to a player returning from a doping suspension.

The five-time grand slam tournament winner will climb into the top 200 on Monday, high enough to earn a trip to London, albeit for a Wimbledon match programme that will begin earlier than usual.

She will need to win three matches to earn a place in the first round of the tournament itself.

Any wild card for Sharapova, who was Wimbledon champion as a 17-year-old in 2004, would have divided opinion.

She was banned from the sport after testing positive for meldonium, but denied using it for any performanceenhancing purpose, and an initial twoyear ban was cut on appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Picture: Getty. Dominic Thiem of Austria celebrates after he knocked Rafael Nadal of Spain out of the Italian Open at the quarter-final stage in Rome yesterday.

Maria Sharapova has pledged to go through the qualifiers to secure a place in the main Wimbledon draw.