Shameless Sharapova faces fight for respect
AFTER Serena Williams’s pregnancy and the outrage around Ilie Nastase, women’s tennis moves swiftly on today with one of the more bizarre comebacks in the sport’s history.
At 9.15am this morning — four days after the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix actually began — Maria Sharapova will finally be allowed to practise inside the hosting arena.
More than eight hours later, she will play her opening match against Italy’s world No 36 Roberta Vinci, having served exactly 15 months of a doping suspension.
Sharapova, banned from setting foot on site until this morning, is being hailed by her fans as the cavalry coming to the rescue of a game presently short on star quality, but, ironically, enjoying mass exposure over the past week.
As Britain’s Jo Konta observed yesterday: ‘I was just saying, “I can’t wait for things to be boring”. Because literally every morning, I’m waking up and something else has happened. I’m like, “Oh my goodness”.’
Watching developments from afar will be the All England Club, who are in no hurry to make the call on whether to offer Sharapova a wildcard.
The relevant meeting of Wimbledon’s tennis sub-committee, chaired by Tim Henman, is not scheduled until June 20, by which time she could have won enough matches to qualify anyway.
Do not be surprised if the Russian resumes normal service quickly. She should be ultra-motivated and super fit and she has won this tournament three times. Also, some other players have arrived relatively late, having played weekend Fed Cup matches.
Among those is Konta, whose first round match today is against American qualifier Naomi Osaka. She came in from a traumatic tie against Romania, where the verbal abuse of the crowd and captain Nastase reduced her to tears.
Konta will not forgive him in a hurry. ‘I think it was highly inappropriate and I don’t think there was any excuse or justification for it, no matter what background or culture you come from,’ she said.
Her Romanian adversary Simona Halep also condemned Nastase’s insults, but said she had not suffered from his crude remarks herself. ‘He never talked dirty to me or anything,’ she reflected.
While Konta studiously avoided meaningful comment on Sharapova’s wildcard for Stuttgart, Halep has changed her previously supportive stance.
‘I cannot support what the tournament director did, but also I cannot judge,’ she said. ‘In my opinion, for the kids, young players, it’s not OK to help with wildcards players who have been banned for doping.’
World No 3 Karolina Pliskova was more sympathetic. ‘From the tournament’s side, I think it’s going to be a big plus,’ she said. ‘With Serena being out, I think tennis definitely needs a star like her. I don’t have anything against it.’
Meanwhile, Dan Evans continued his unlikely run on the clay of Barcelona with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Mischa Zverev. The British No 3 faces fourth seed Dominic Thiem in the last 16.