Maria Sharapova

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Seeing the outfit on TV I think it looks great. And I'm glad she managed to pass the 1st round, she struggled so much...
 
I wasn't so sure of the dress in the beginning but, seeing the pictures and seeing her play in it has changed my mind. :wub:
 

Player Overview
Day 4 - An interview with Maria Sharapova - Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Video Interview

Q. It was quite hard today, so can you tell us about, I don't know, the conditions or what did give you so many problems today.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Me, myself, and I. (laughter.) Number one problem today. I started off well, and, you know, won the first set pretty comfortably. I kind of went downhill after that.
You know, she broke me in that first game. And, you know, credit to her. She started serving a lot better and making a lot of first serves, and the wind not giving me a lot of opportunities to, you know, to attack.
But, you know, I was quite tentative. I was giving her the opportunities to take control of the points, and not really playing the way I play my game. I was trying to maybe be somebody else that I'm not, and that can get you into trouble. It did today.


Q. Have you been disturbed by the wind or the condition of the clay?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Well, apart from eating and breathing the sand, it was great. I mean, you know, like the conditions were bad for me, they were bad for her, and they were bad for everybody else playing on all the other courts, so...


Q. Also, was it a problem for you, because normally you should have played yesterday, and then you had to wait maybe a lot yesterday and then you have to play today.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Everybody waited, too. I'm not the only one. I was actually lucky because I got to wait in my hotel room while some others had to wait here because they were first or second match, so...


Q. How do you explain the problem with your serve?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: How do I what? Sorry. What did you say?


Q. You had quite problems with your serve, as well.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Oh, I had problems in every department of my game today, so I'll have to improve on every aspect of those things.


Q. Is this kind of typical of a Grand Slam, you can prepare all you want and then all of a sudden you get conditions like that thrown at you today and all the stuff you did beforehand doesn't really mean all that much?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: It does. It still does, because, you know, you come into the match, you know, doing everything you possibly can do. You try to get the best preparation. Obviously last week, you know, was a great sunny week with really good conditions and lots of practice time.
And then just like every other year, the beginning of the tournament starts with a lot of rain and the court condition changes and the weather condition changes and all the other factors come into play and you find yourself playing a different ballgame, and you actually shouldn't be.
You should be doing the things that you do best, and yeah.


Q. It's not unusual for tall players to sometimes have difficulty in windy conditions. Do you have any history of having problems playing in wind?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Ummm, no. Usually, most of the time, I'm a pretty good wind player. You know, I adjust very well, because maybe 95% of the time my ball goes through the wind. And when you are there out there and you're playing 14‑Under tennis and you're pushing the balls, then you create many problems, you know.
You start thinking your opponent is doing something out of the ordinary. Well, what she's doing is she's making you hit another ball and she's forcing you to hit an error.
And that's what you do, because you start thinking and you are becoming tentative and you're not playing your game.
So, no. Look, I've played in a lot of matches where it's been windy, and I've been successful in many of them. These are just days where you're not playing your best tennis. You can say the conditions were bad, you can say your opponent played well, you can say all those things. But at the end of the day, you're fortunate to get through the match, you're fortunate you're giving yourself another opportunity to play another match and to get better.
Because realistically, I don't know if there's any way down from here, you know.


Q. I was thinking about your footwork.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: There was not a lot of footwork today either. I shouldn't be tired. That's the good thing. I didn't move too much. So that's a plus. (laughter.)


Q. What's it like playing in a clay court with no top dressing?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: With no clay?


Q. Yeah.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: It's ‑‑ I don't know how to answer that question.


Q. Is it more like a hardcourt, because obviously it's not going to be as slippery?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: It's it far from hardcourt. Far from it.


Q. You really can't describe it.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Well, it's dry and you've got sand blowing in your face. So you think it's a hardcourt, but then you feel like you're in a desert. I don't know.
I mean, the court's like in Amelia Island, they're very slippery and they wasn't a lot of clay on it. But here you have a little bit more footing.
But then depends where the wind is going the sand is blowing to one side. So on one side you don't have a lot of clay, but then you go on the other side where the wind is blowing to and you have a lot of sand on that side. So I don't know.


Q. What caused the problems on the serve, as many double faults as you had?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Umm, maybe the conditions, maybe the wind, my toss. There are a lot of things I could name, you know.


Q. Is it something you're concerned about moving forward?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Well, I don't think I'd be able to get away with, you know, with not playing and not serving that well with maybe with a different opponent and somebody that has more experience, you know, a top player.

But, no, I'll work on it and it will be better.


Q. When things go so wrong, do you just erase this game from your memory, or do you kick it around and get a little hurt from it?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: You try to erase it. It still moves around a little bit here and there, and you just try to stay positive as much as you can. You try to look at the situation and the conditions as a challenge and something that every player has to get through and pass. You know, this is not an easy road for anybody with the weather and with the conditions. But, you know, sometimes you end a match and you win it and you come off the court and you say, you know, It's pretty impressive considering you didn't play your best tennis and you played against somebody that was very consistent and, you know, stayed in with you during the match and you come out with a win.
You know, you can be proud of yourself, but you obviously know you have to get better and it's going to get tougher, and, you know, the challenges are going to come more and more, and you're going to step up to the line and you have to challenge them.


Q. Different conditions but very tough first‑round match in Australia couple years ago. Is that something you can think about and draw upon in a match like this?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: That was, you know, quite a long time ago, and a different surface, and, you know, different opponent, obviously.
You always want to try to get, you know, an easy match, especially in the first round, but that's the way things go. It's not always ‑‑ it's not always a piece of cake, so...


Q. That's not in your mind at all?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: A match that was two years ago? I hope not. I have some issues if it was.


Q. You already said something about your bad day at the office, your bad day at the serve. How do you explain, if you have a child, let's say, you have to tell them that there is a No. 1 in the world that makes 17 double faults. And then you have a player like Coria who was finalist here who makes 15, 20 double faults per match.
Dementieva, who has been in the top 5, makes 20 double faults. I mean, how do you explain it? It's mentally? I mean, it's difficult, or not?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Umm, well, once you start naming that, I mean, jeez, yeah. Those are the statistics, but, you know, if you look back at the match, I think there are a few moments in the match where I think some points it was 30‑All and I came out with some of the best serves of the match, as well. So I don't know. You know, it's ‑‑ it's tough to explain. Sometimes you just ‑‑ you're going to have those days where many things are not working for you and you make errors and you, you know, kind of becomes like a roller coaster ride. But it's all right.


Q. This incident happened early on in the match and clearly did not affect winning the first set. But were you annoyed or disturbed at all by the code violation warning?

MARIA SHARAPOVA: For?


Q. Time delay.

MARIA SHARAPOVA: Sorry, the time? That seems like hours ago.
No, I got one in Australia, I think, during my third round or something. I think in the Grand Slams the amount of time you have in between the points is shorter, I assume, because any other tournament I don't get a code violation. But that's all right. It's fine. I hit an ace after that, so maybe they should call it more often.


Q. That's why you hit second serves, right?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: I don't know, but it was an ace. I know it was an ace.
 
Maria Sharapova @ 2008 French Open Roland Garros - Day 6, May 30 - celebutopia.

 
thanks for pics.
Unfortunately I must say that I don't think she'll go far, she's struggling in every match, and as soon as she runs into stronger opponent she'll be knocked out...
 
^I kind of have to agree, she really isnt playing well at all..no one really expected her to win the french open, but i thought she'd play better than she is!
Hopefully she'll pick her game up!
 
^ Yeah, I'm hoping she will, I keep thinking this is the first week, she adjust with time, but...
 
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