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| Maria Sharapova |
When Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon back in 2004, it was supposed to be the start of a new era in women's tennis.
Sharapova was supposed to take the ball and run with it, all the way to becoming one of the top players in all of women's tennis. Since then, she has won two more Grand Slams, but has recently fallen into a slump. The Russian player hasn't won a major event since 2008 and hasn't reached the semi-finals of a Grand Slam since then either, only reaching the quarterfinals of the French Open 2009.
"It's really overwhelming," Sharapova said to Greg Garbger of ESPN.com about her first Grand Slam win. "I think you're almost a little bit naïve at that point about achieving something like that. From my perspective, I just didn't think I was physically ready, wasn't physically matured enough, wasn't strong enough."
All of those things may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that Sharapova isn't getting any younger and as a player like Caroline Wozniacki looks poised to dominate the women's field for a long, long time, the window of opportunity is getting smaller and smaller.
Furthermore, even a player like Kim Clijsters is someone who has had a lot of success in recent years and is another major roadblock to another Grand Slam for Sharapova. While she did just beat No. 4 Samantha Stosur at the Sony Ericsson Open, her first win against a top-five player in more than three years, I'm looking at that as more of an outlier than a change from the norm.
While these recent results are encouraging for Sharapova, I won't believe she can succeed at the highest levels in tennis until she goes out and does it. The field is simply too tough and Sharapova has had limited-to-no success on the biggest stages in tennis in recent years.
If you're waiting for Sharapova to break through and hoist some hardware, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Sources: http://bleacherreport.com
