Maria Sharapova, U.s. Open | featured news

Maria Sharapova's stomach ache turned out to be nothing more than that. That lopsided loss she suffered at the Olympics — well, that may have only been a false alarm, as well. Playing her first match since a blowout loss to Serena Williams in London and a stomach virus that forced her out of two tuneup tournaments, Sharapova returned to tennis in fine fashion Monday at the U.S. Open.

Grit was not going to be enough to get Maria Sharapova through this one. Not with nine double-faults, including three in a row. Not with a total of 36 unforced errors. And certainly not with No. 1-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark across the net Monday in the fourth round of the U.S. Open, doing "what she does best," as Sharapova herself put it: getting to nearly every ball and hammering it back, stretching points on and on and on until her opponent misses the mark.