Sharapova - wilted flower or blossoming cherry tree? Is she all washed up?

Sharapova - wilted flower or blossoming cherry tree? Is she all washed up?
The question is whether she is washed up.

It may very well be that Venus Williams, Dinara Safina, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, Maria Sharapova, Jelena Jankovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Elena Dementieva, and Victoria Azarenka are better tennis players and will be remembered as such at the end of the day.

She is aided by having played more tournaments than most and thus being able to exclude the worst results. But this is not a tactic that only she is allowed to choose (obviously there are some top ten rules here, but let's not get all technical).

Sharapova - top Russian Women's Player?

Many top Russian women tennis players train outside their home nation, so about the only places they can ever get together are at professional tournaments around the world. The nation's female tennis players struggle to pinpoint a single reason they have continued to flourish against the backdrop of a withering sports infrastructure, saying toughness fashioned from hard training conditions, strong genes and the enthusiasm for the sport left behind by late Russian president Boris Yeltsin all have played a part, as has the lack of high-level competitive opportunities that encourage many young players to turn pro early.