(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Maria Sharapova was yesterday handed a wildcard into the Cincinnati WTA tournament, a key warm-up for the US Open, the season's final Grand Slam which has yet to guarantee the Russian star a place. Former world number one and five-time Grand Slam title winner Sharapova is still rebuilding her career following a 15-month doping ban which ended in April.
Injury then ruled her out of contention for Wimbledon where she had been due to play qualifying after French Open organisers had refused her a wildcard.
The Cincinnati event, which runs from August 12-20, also granted a wildcard to Victoria Azarenka, the two-time major winner who only recently returned to the tour after maternity leave. 'The addition of these players add to our already strong player field, said tournament director Andre Silva.
'We anticipate the WTA's No. 1 ranking to be on the line during the tournament and adding players of this calibre will make the battle for the top spot even more compelling.
Sharapova, 30, was champion in Cincinnati in 2011 with Azarenka taking the title two tears later. Sharapova, now ranked 173 in the world, hasn't played since being injured in Rome in May but will return next week at the Stanford tournament.
The Russian star tested positive for meldonium, a heart and blood boosting drug, at the 2016 Australian Open. She said that she had taken it for several years and did not know it had been placed on the banned list at the beginning of 2016.
Sharapova was issued a two-year suspension, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced the ban on appeal. On her return to the sport in Stuttgart in April, she reached the semi-finals. However, she has relied on wildcards to play in events with many players critical of the decision to invite her against the background of her doping ban.
Sharapova said her struggles over the past two years have made her stronger. 'These last two years have been tougher — so much tougher — than I ever could have anticipated my passion for the game has never wavered. If anything, it's only grown stronger, Sharapova wrote in a column for The Players' Tribune.
'I'm getting ready for the North American hardcourt season now, one of my favourites. I'll play Stanford, then Toronto — and I'm going to give it everything I have.
Players, both current and former, and pundits criticised her for the ban and her subsequent wildcard entries and Sharapova admitted that the increased scrutiny affected her. 'I'm not oblivious. I'm aware of what many of my peers have said about me, and how critical of me some of them have been in the press...
I don't think that sort of thing will ever fully be possible to ignore, Sharapova added.
'But at the same time I've always tried to keep a generous attitude toward critics in general. I've never wanted to respond to the people trashing me by trashing them back; that's always been important to me. I've always wanted to face my critics by simply taking the high road. And by showing them, by showing everyone, that taking the high road is a choice.
After the Stanford tournament, the former world number one will play the Rogers Cup in Toronto, starting on August 7.
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