Sharapova’s fall from grace is threatening to accelerate

AMID the dramatic recent history that Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova have at the Australian Open, it is easy to overlook a fifth anniversary taking place this month.

It was January 2015 when the two of them played one of the best high-profile matches of the decade just gone, a final brimming with quality and emotion that saw the American fight off Sharapova’s second set comeback to win 6-3, 7-6.

Afterwards it even brought a rare moment of heartfelt praise from Williams for her old foe: ‘Maria played a wonderful match, she really pushed me,’ said the champion.

Apart from anything, subsequent events mean it is likely that the evening will be recorded as the last Grand Slam final of Sharapova’s career.

To say that much has happened in their two lives since does not start to tell of their divergence.

Five years on Sharapova arrives at Melbourne Park ranked 147 and relying on the charity of a wild-card entry, while Williams finds herself chasing Margaret Court’s tally of 24 Grand Slam singles titles.

Williams and Sharapova were to meet again 12 months later after their classic final, in the last eight of 2016, and the match proved far less memorable, the former winning easily.

Infinitely more significant was the doping test the loser took afterwards, that was to have such a profound effect on her life.

It showed up the presence of the then recently-banned meldonium, a drug with wide-ranging benefits that the World Anti-Doping Agency had worked out was being used to enhance performance.

Sharapova pleaded ignorance and ended up being banned until late April 2017. After an initially promising start to her return, she could hardly have envisaged she would be where she is now.

Turning 33 in April she is refusing to give up but, if she fails to defend her fourth round points from last year, her 147 ranking will plummet even further, towards 200.

Earlier this week Sharapova lost in the first round of the Brisbane International to world No 53 Jennifer Brady. It tells you something that the main headlines derived from the match was Sharapova voicing the view that the women’s event there had been relegated to ‘secondhand’ status compared with the concurrent group stages of the new men’s ATP Cup.

While there is undoubtedly a combination of reasons behind her fall, there is ample evidence that in the post-meldonium phase of her career the Russian has simply not been the same player she was previously.

Since winning Wimbledon in 2004 up until her ban her ‘worst’ win-loss ratio of any season was an impressive 75 per cent. In the last three seasons that has gone progressively down to 69.6 per cent, 65.7 per cent and in her injury-restricted last year to just 46.2 per cent.

As a wild card, she will be at the mercy of the draw being made on Thursday. Williams, who chose to prepare in the relative calm of Auckland, was this morning playing the final of the ASB Classic against unseeded Jessica Pegula.

She looked in immaculate form in yesterday’s semifinals, destroying teenager Amanda Anisimova, 6-1, 6-1.