January 04, 2011
Maria Sharapova showed that she's worth all the money and publicity for this year's ASB Classic as she cruised into the second round.
Sharapova has played a significant factor in making all of the day sessions for this year's tournament a sell-out and it's clear Kiwi tennis fans are falling in love with the Russian starlet.
She enthralled the 3200 seater centre court yesterday blitzing past her opponent Alberta Brianti 6-2 6-3 in an hour and 35 minutes.
The only real issue of the day was a last minute change of opponent for her.
While Britain's Heather Watson was beating Brianti 6-3 6-2 in the final round of qualifying on court four, it was announced that fifth seed Anastasija Sevastova from Latvia had pulled out of the tournament with the flu.
It meant that Sharapova's opponent Carla Suarez Navarro was now a seeded player and would take Sevastova's place in the draw and play's against Italy's Romina Oprandi today instead.
So Sharapova was given a new opponent, Brianti, who was given another life as a Lucky Loser.
This is because Brianti is the highest ranked player to lose in the final round of qualifying.
The question was if Brianti got smashed by Watson, what chance would she have against Sharapova?
The answer was no chance.
Sharapova never really got out of second gear to beat the Italian. She had too much power for Brianti to cope with and the outcome of the match was inevitable from the first game.
Sharapova's big grunt and cute little clenched fist after hitting a winning point were both there, as were the 'come on's' from her when she hit the winning points to take each set.
Afterwards, Sharapova said it was enjoyable for her to be playing matches again after not playing a match since October.
"To be honest I was really excited to be back on the court after spending so much time training and out of tournament competition,” Sharapova said.
"It's great to be in the atmosphere of a crowd and playing, it's so different to anything in practice.
"The change of opponent was a bit different, I warmed up pretty early here and then headed back and took another rest, so that was the only hiccup today.”
While there was never any real chance of Brianti beating Sharapova said she was wary of playing someone match-hardened.
"Sometimes they are some of the most dangerous opponents, she's already played a match today and even though she lost it, it was like a second wind for her,'' Sharapova said.
"She came out and played a really solid match. She got a lot of balls back and from my perspective it was good because it allowed me to be in different situations and come out of them, be down and be up and find a way to win and that's important early on.''
Sharapova will play Renata Voracova from the Czech Republic tomorrow.
Today there are two stand-out matches. Marina Erakovic takes on Russia's Elena Vesnina in the second match on centre court and this is followed by Dinara Safina against Yanina Wickmayer.
Erakovic has already notched a win under her belt at this year's Classic, teaming up with Sofia Arvidsson to beat Simona Halep and Tamira Paszek in the doubles.
Erakovic believes that match would have helped with her preparations for today's singles match.
"A lot of these years I've played the singles on Monday and the doubles on Tuesday and it's nice to step on the court and have a [doubles match] before the singles one,'' Erakovic said.
"Today was really hot which was another good point and the crowd was great, I think it's a good prep for the singles."
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