Maria Sharapova

Sharapova has been labelled as an offensive baseliner by tennis critics and fans. She is noted for having an excellent forehand, double-handed backhand and serves; particularly for the power, precision and placement of these shots. Likewise, critics claim that for her height, Sharapova has decent agility on-court. Being an offensive player of great precision, Sharapova is usually able to overpower her opponents or keep them on the run with sharp angles from the baseline.

However she is not known for being among the strongest of defensive players. She looses precision on her groundstrokes when she is put on the run herself, a weakness that the best all-around players can expliot. Sharapova is also not a natural volleyer. Instead of having "soft hands" at the net, she typically uses a powerful "swinging" volley for net approaches.

Sharapova was once known for having the best combined first and second serve in the women's game. She usually serves for placement but uses enough power on her first and second serve that attacking that stroke was very difficult for her opponents.

Due to her injury problems, Sharapova has adopted a new service action, with a shorter backswing. Sharapova's first and second serve has become less effective during the 2007 season. Previously, Sharapova had an elongated backswing to generate power on her serve; however, as a trade-off, the swing also placed incredible strain on her shoulder, which eventually led to Sharapova's shoulder injury at the beginning of the 2007 season.

Source: wikipedia.org

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