Australian Open 2008: Maria Sharapova vs Lindsay Davenport Second Round Match Preview

The mouth watering clash is now up for grab for the millions of tennis fans. The two former world no. 1 ranked players are going to face each other in the second round of Australian Open 2008. Maria Sharapova defeated Jelena Kostanic Tosic 6-4, 6-3 showing some impressive aces in the first round, whereas Lindsay Davenport clinched a hard-fought three set victory over Sara Ennari in the first round.

No doubt, Maria Sharapova and Lindsey Davenport are going to face in the most highlighted second round match of Australian Open 2008. Lindsay Davenport has been in an impressive run since coming back in September after becoming mother of a baby boy. It was something expected that Davenport would be able to come back in the circuit within such a short time. Not only has she returned in the court, but also she has been showing impressive performance so far with 19-1 record since her retuning. It is true that she could not yet face any grand slam winner. So, Maria Sharapova is going to be the first grand slam winner opponent for Davenport in the second round after coming back in action. Indicating her poor 1-4 record against Sharapova, she said that would have to be more aggressive this time around.

sports.inquirer reported:

"It will be interesting. It will be the first Grand Slam winner I've played since being back," she said.

"And she's a great player. I mean, it's one of the few players I don't have a winning record against probably in the draw."

"We play very similar styles. She's outplayed me the last couple times we played and I'm going to definitely have to hit the ball well, be more aggressive than I was today, just basically do everything a lot cleaner."

On the other hand, fifth seed Maria Sharapova will have to face an inspired Davenport in her way to win her third grand slam title. Sharapova did not have a good year in 2007 and had to suffer from her recurring shoulder injury. However, she started the tournament with an easy victory and she admitted that she did not feel the worrisome injury during the first round match. While talking about the upcoming match, the Russian star stated that both of them have similar styles of game and insisted that serving well would be important.

AFP reported:

"Lindsay's a big hitter, has a big serve, she's more of a one-two ball combination type of player," she said.

"It's going to be very important to serve well and return well and hopefully get a good hit on the first ball.

"We have pretty similar styles of game. We're baseline players, we like to take advantage from the first ball."

Whatever the statistics shows, it is a different game and neither of them can afford to take the match lightly. Moreover, both of them have been out of grand slam success for quite sometime, whatever the reason is. So, Sharapova and Davenport will try their best to outperform the each other to reach the third round of Australian Open 2008. So, you can expect a hard clash between Maria Sharapova and Lindsey Davenport.