Maria Sharapova shuts down 2018 season

Maria Sharapova will not play again in 2018, with the Russian withdrawing from scheduled events in Asia and targeting a return in Shenzhen in January 2019.

Sharapova was entered into tournaments in Wuhan, Beijing and Tianjin – the latter at which she was the defending champion.

“I was looking forward to coming back to Tianjin to defend my title but unfortunately I need to give myself time to recover from injury,” Sharapova said in a statement.

“I am disappointed that I won’t be able to play in front of all of the fans in Tianjin again and I hope to be able to play there in the future.”

Maria Sharapova is shutting down her 2018 season, withdrawing from Beijing, Tianjin, and Moscow to rest and recuperate.

She plans to return at WTA Shenzhen to start the 2019 season, per her team.

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) September 17, 2018

She appeared to be playing through wrist discomfort at the US Open, where she went down to Carla Suarez Navarro in the fourth round.

It is hard to know what to make of Sharapova’s season, which was successful on some levels and disappointing on others.

She improved her ranking from No.59 at the end of 2017 to its current mark of 24th, helping her achieve a Grand Slam seeding at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows. She was impressive on clay, reaching quarterfinals in Madrid and Paris either side of a semifinal in Rome, the deepest she went at a tournament in 2018. She won far more matches than she lost, building a win-loss record of 20-11.

Yet there were plenty of forgettable moments, too.

She bombed in the opening round in Doha, Indian Wells and Stuttgart – contributing to a four-match losing streak – and suffered a humiliating first-round defeat to qualifier Vitalia Diatchenko, during which she blew a set and 5-2 lead.

Injuries continued to plague her; she skipped Miami and Stanford due to an ongoing arm injury and also missed Cincinnati, although the reason for that was unspecified.

In all, she played just 11 tournaments, and by failing to defend the 400 points she collected in Beijing and Tianjin last year, she could struggle to maintain a place in the top 30 by season’s end.

It is also just the second season, dating back to 2003, that Sharapova has not won at least one tour-level title. The other year was 2016, when she played just one tournament (the Australian Open) before sitting out the rest of the year due to a doping ban.

She returned to tennis in April 2017.