Tennis – Former World No. 1 Maria Sharapova has been included in the list of candidates for the national women’s tennis team for 2019, according to the press service of the Russian Sports Ministry. The list also includes Ekaterina Aleksandrova, Anna Blinkova, Elena Vesnina, Natalia Vikhlyantseva, Margarita Gasparyan, Irina Glimakova, Vitalia Dyachenko, Sofia Zhuk, Vera Zvonareva, Anna Kalinskaya, Ekaterina Kamenetskaya, Daria Kasatkina, Ekaterina Kirgizova, Veronika Kudermetova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ekaterina Makarova, Polina Monova, Lyudmila Nikoyan, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Anastasia Potapova, Yevgeniya Rodina, Irina Khromacheva, Yulia Chubarova and Daria Churakova.
Meanwhile, TASS also reported that Sharapova is expected to play the 2019 St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy. The Russian is a five-time Grand Slam champion, having won the Australian Open, US Open and Wimbledon once each and the French Open on two occasions.
She has also won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012 and the 2008 Fed Cup champions. 31-year-old Sharapova is currently ranked No. 29 in the world and played in 11 tournaments in 2018. Her best results came at the Shenzhen Open in China and the WTA event in Rome.
She also reached the quarter-finals at the French Open and the fourth round of the US Open. The Russian starts her season at the WTA event in Shenzhen this week after missing the last three months of the season due to injury.
The tournament is headed by World No. 13 Aryna Sabalenka. Other top players in the draw include Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko. Also Read – Roger Federer Surprised by Agnieszka Radwanska’s Retirement
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