Click to play videoNew Delhi: A few weeks away from the Wimbledon, Maria Sharapova and Sania Mirza have kickstarted their preparations with the DFS Classic in Birmingham.
Maria Sharapova is hoping a slice of familiarity will put her back on track for a second Wimbledon title. She has won 19 out of 21 matches at the Edgbaston Priory Club and is the firm favourite to lift her first title of the year, to add to her Birmingham successes of 2004 and 2005. She still has daily treatment on the problem right shoulder but insists it will not hamper her bid to regain her Wimbledon crown.
"I look forward to the beginning of the grass season from the beginning of the year, so I took the French Open as the preparation for the grass season because I was injured and out for very long. So, you know, I feel I'm prepared and gotten a lot of matches and looking forward to it," Sharapova says.
India's Sania Mirza is also as keen as Sharapova to make an impression after a knee injury that has impaired her play for the past three months.
"This is the toughest transition everyone has to make because it's from coming the slowest surface to the fastest surface. So you know I got here early, I got here on Wednesday, so we have been practising a few days, a couple of days before everyone got in, a lot of the girls got in. And obviously on the grass court you have to know how you are serving because you really have to concentrate on the way you are serving because that's the most important part on a grass court because whoever holds or whoever breaks most of the time usually wins the match," Sania says.
Clearly, both look hungrier than ever, convinced they can reclaim not only full fitness, but also the kind of form that has propelled them to dizzying heights in the past.
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