Sharapova had not played a singles match since August 2008

Maria Sharapova returned to singles action after a nine-and-a-half-month injury lay-off with a battling win over Tathiana Garbin at the Warsaw Open.

The 22-year-old Russian, who has fallen from world number one to 126 during her absence from the sport, showed plenty of grit in the first-round tie on clay.

And she showed few signs of her shoulder injury as she beat the Italian Garbin 6-1 6-7 (6-8) 6-3.

Sharapova will hope to stay fit ahead of the French Open, starting on 24 May.

The Russian, who is the highest earner in women's sport despite missing last year's US Open and this year's Australian Open, has repeatedly postponed her comeback over the last few weeks, although she did play one losing game in the doubles tournament at Indian Wells in March.

But the three-time Grand Slam-winner, who had a rotator cuff injury, showed few signs of ring rust in the match's early exchanges and broke her opponent four times in a row in the opening set, dropping her own serve once en route to the set.

Sharapova spurned four match points at 5-3 and 40-0 in the ninth game of the second set, allowing Garbin back into the match in the tie-break.

606: DEBATE Rate Sharapova's victory

But the Russian, playing with a criss-crossed bandage on her right shoulder, hit back from 3-1 down in the decider to eventually seal victory in two hours and 35 minutes.

"I certainly had desire to win my first match back," the Russian said. "I'm hungry, I haven't played for a while and I want it really bad and sometimes I actually have to stop myself at times and tell myself to be patient.

"Although these nine months have been pretty difficult, I've definitely had to test out my patience.

"In these nine months the only thing I've accomplished is probably a good pasta carbonara. At the end of the day that's not my specialty, my specialty is to go out and compete and win Grand Slams."

Britain's Anne Keothavong, meanwhile, also opened with a victory, beating American seventh seed Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-2 7-6 (7-4).

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version