Maria Sharapova has spoken about the younger generation of the WTA Tour as she makes her final preparations ahead of next week’s Brisbane International Open.
The five-time Grand Slam winner is the defending champion at the event and will be seeded third behind Garbine Muguruza and Simona Halep. The 2016 edition of the Brisbane tournament consists of high quality with eight out of the worlds top 15 players on the WTA Tour participating in the event. Speaking about why she has chosen to start her seasson in Brisbane over the past two years, Sharapova stated that she is attracted to the tournament due to the quality of the field.
“This is the only event I play before the Australian Open and this is the toughest event this week. That’s why I’ve chosen it the past two years”. She told Fox Sports Australia.
“It’s nice to be back in a town which is familiar and where I had good success. I was glad to get on the plane (in Los Angeles).’’
At 28-years-old Sharapova is becoming a veteran in the top 20. There are currently 13 players younger than the Russian ranked inside the top 20 (the youngest being Belinda Bencic at 18). Speaking about the new group of youngsters bursting onto the tour, Sharapova labelled the group of players as ‘great‘ and explained that it is how things work in her sport.
“There’s always going to be a newer generation fighting for that spot and we saw a lot of that last year,’’ Sharapova admitted.
“It’s been great to see the level of tennis and the amount of surprises, an incredible amount of women coming up. The players who played 10 years ago aren’t going to be playing anymore and someone else will take their place. It’s going to happen to me one day and to everyone else.’’
Sharapova will be chasing after her first Australian Open title since 2008 next month. This year she reached the final at the tournament before losing to world No.1 Serena Williams. 2015 has been a testing season for the Russian who has experienced a series of injury issues involving her shoulder, leg and forearm. Despite the troubles, the 28-year-old was still able to win two titles this year in Brisbane and Rome. She ended her season at the WTA Finals in Singapore where she produced a trio of wins to reach the last four. Shortly after her Singapore performance, she played in the Fed Cup final, winning both of her singles matches.
“I was really happy how I finished the season in Singapore and playing a Fed Cup final was really inspirational to me,’’ she concluded.
