The 2015 WTA season is due to kick off in Brisbane tomorrow and Women’s Tennis Blog is on site, bringing you all the action from the year’s first WTA Premier tournament.
Thursday at the Queensland Tennis Centre was all about preparation, as several players practiced ahead of the tournament’s start, trying to get themselves accustomed to the scorching Brisbane heat & humidity.
Among the players putting in the hours on court ahead of the brand new season was #1 seed Maria Sharapova,as the Russian completed a two-hour practice session with coach Sven Groeneveld inside Pat Rafter Arena.
While most of Sharapova’s practice was held with prying eyes locked out, the two-time Roland Garros champion did allow the media to join her for 15 minutes of her training session.
The former Australian Open champion seemed as excited as anybody to get the new season underway, sharing plenty of smiles with her team and playfully teasing her German hitting partner Didi Kindlmann.
Once the main draw action gets underway on Sunday, Sharapova will face off with plenty of other WTA household names, including Ana Ivanovic, Angelique Kerber, Sabine Lisicki, Andrea Petkovic as well as last year’s finalist Victoria Azarenka, who’s kicking off her campaign to get back up the rankings following a lengthy foot injury that sidelined her for the majority of the 2014 season.
Regular match play at the 2015 Brisbane Tennis International will start with qualifying action tomorrow, make sure to keep checking back all week as we’ll bring you all the latest updates from Brisbane.
Great job, as always! 🙂 Thanks for being so dedicated and coming to take photos before anyone else! 🙂 Even though the practice courts are completely shielded by fences, in the end you took quite a few nice practice photos. Maria allowed for 15 minutes and you were there those 15 minutes! Brisbane will certainly not regret giving us a pass 🙂
Good job Marija and team! Keep it coming!
Thanks, Emman Damian. 🙂