WTA: Martina Navratilova knows what Maria Sharapova (still) is missing

Maria Sharapova won a tournament after her comeback and worked her way up to 41st place in the world ranking. Martina Navratilova believes that after Sharapova’s opening defeat in Indian Wells, she knows why the Russian is not yet back in the lead.

Martina Navratilova knows what it means to be the favourite in a match. The legendary left-hander was confronted with this starting position in almost all her games with few exceptions, only against Chris Evert or later Steffi Graf knew to turn the signs from time to time. Maria Sharapova in her best phase also rarely had to deal with the role of an outsider – with the beautiful side effect that her opponents did not dare to do much.

But this fact has changed, explains Martina Navratilova on the WTA homepage:”Maria Sharapova no longer radiates the aura of the playfully untouchable. And that’s why we are still running after earlier successes at the moment.

“In the past, players who were drawn against them said:’ Damn it, I have to play against Maria’,”Navratilova writes,”Now it’s the other way around. The players think:”Oh! Well, I’m up against Maria.”

Maria Sharapova returned to the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart after her 15-month ban on doping in the spring of last year, but was repeatedly thrown back by injuries. In 2018, Sharapova reached the semi-finals in Shenzhen, failed in round three against Angelique Kerber at the Australian Open and finally lost to Monica Niculescu at the start in Doha.

“Martina Navratilova continues:” The rest of the field wants this scalp and plays above the normal level. Once upon a time, the players thought that maybe I could win a set against Sharapova. Now they think that victory is in the match. And that makes it difficult for Sharapova to regain her self-confidence in the early stages of a tournament. This can become a vicious circle.”