The US Open Tennis is right around the corner and the women’s draw is going to be wide open for the action at Flushing Meadows. There is a good clutch of ten players or so who really have the potential to go and claim the title and interesting, one of those is Maria Sharapova, who is taking part in her first Grand Slam tournament following her ban from the game.
Sharapova is a 12/1 option in the US Open betting market at bet365 and lets not forget that her biggest rival in the game, Serena Williams is on the sidelines for this one and Victoria Azarenka has pulled out early. So Maria Sharapova’s return to the Grand Slam stage is naturally going to raise plenty of interest. She served a ban from the game for a failed drug test, although she protests her innocence still.
She claims that the drug, meldonium she had been using for a decade because of a heart condition and she and her staff had missed the email about it when it was added to the list of banned substances. Ignorance generally isn’t a great defence in situations like this though and she has had a really vocal opponent in Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard who has pretty much called the Russian a cheat.
There is likely not going to be a bigger story at Flushing Meadows than Sharapova’s Grand Slam return. She missed out at the French Open this year because of injury and wasn’t awarded a wildcard for Wimbledon, part of that being an awkward situation for the tournament making it easy for a former champion, yet one who has this doping stigma over her, to get back into the draw.
There aren’t the concerns of that at the US Open because Sharapova is a big money draw. She is a five time Grand Slam Champion and will be riding her wildcard entry in New York. Sharapova has only entered four tournaments this season, reaching the semi final in Stuttgart, losing in the second round of Madrid to Bouchard, retiring in her second round game against Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in Rome and then pulling out ahead of her second round match at Stanford.
But would Sharapova be taking this risk on the big stage if she didn’t believe that she was ready? Her last appearance at Flushing Meadows ended in a round of sixteen defeat to Caroline Wozniacki in 2014. She has a 32-9 record at the US Open and her title there came in the 2006 event and she has had two other semi final appearance since then. So it isn’t the greatest of records there from her and remember that she is a wildcard so could have a big challenge in the draw against seeded players.
Heading into the tournament, Garbine Muguruza is 9/2 outright favourite at bet365 followed by world number one Karolina Pliskova at 13/2 and then Simona Halep who has missed some big opportunities to get her first Grand Slam title this year an 8/1 price and the only other player in single figures is Britain’s Jo Konta at 9/1. But then that perhaps just adds some more appeal for Sharapova to come through in a field that is wide open and with no Serena Williams around to stop her, she will have her backers.
Online betting site Bet365 run a great tennis accumulator bonus where you can earn a bonus of up to 50% on accumulator wins. This offer applies to winnings on pre-match accumulators of 2 or more selections on To Win Match, First Set Winner and Set Betting markets for Singles and Doubles matches from any Grand Slam, ATP, WTA or Challenger Tour event, as well as Singles and Doubles matches from the Davis Cup, Fed Cup and Hopman Cup. The maximum bonus that you can receive is £100,000. Register an account with online betting site Bet365 and earn a 100% matched deposit bonus as a welcome offer.
