And during the 15-month period of being banned from competition for doping, the house here was the “last wall”, helping to keep Masha away from the fury of the outside world. “Return”, here means, this is the first time the famous Russian female tennis player returns to the court in the US, even though it is not an official event of the WTA Tour, it is just a tournament. friendly match – World Team Tennis performance only.

The first match of the tennis player ranked 171 in the world after a long absence from all American courts was neither easy nor interesting. She represented the Orange County Breakers and lost to home player Shelby Rogers of the San Diego Aviators with a score of 3-5. In the past, in Acapulco (Mexico) in 2015, Masha easily defeated the American tennis player with a score of 6-4, 6-1. She is of course no longer the tennis player “back then”. She just returned from a severe racket suspension, and not long after returning, she had to withdraw from a series of tournaments (most notably Roland Garros and Wimbledon) due to injury. So now, for Masha, there is a difficult sky ahead.

Masha is of course aware of this. She is a smart girl, if not very smart, so there are many, many things that Masha understands faster and smarter than others (for example, The fact that she held a press conference to admit guilt in the doping case even before the ITF and WADA planned to “organize a round-up on her”, and became the person who “actively admitted her mistakes”, removed many points in the eyes of public opinion). “I think, there is no easy path. It’s great to be able to compete again and it’s something I miss so much. Having a tournament in my schedule, having a schedule to know and prepare for, that’s what I’ve been missing all this time,” Masha confided at the press conference introducing the tournament. World Team Tennis 2017.

Since returning, Masha has received 7 wild-card slots from the organizers of “sympathetic” tournaments towards her. One of the organizers who did not accept to grant her a wild-card slot, and had very harsh words, was the organizers of the Roland Garros tournament, despite the fact that Masha had won twice here. The fact that Masha was given a wild-card slot by many BTC has sparked a wave of debate around the world. One side believes that she has served her sentence, her racket suspension has expired and should be given normal playing conditions. The other side has the opinion that she should start from the beginning, from the qualifying round and not receive wild-card spots. There is even an extreme opinion that Masha does not deserve to hold the racket again and compete with what she has. she did.

Faced with these criticisms, Masha once again calmly said: “I have served my sentence and I think there is nothing more to add to that. I think, simply, now I’m doing what I’ve always done, which is playing tennis. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I was just starting out, really starting out. I’m done. I always had the choice not to play tennis, I had a lot of choices in my career, but I also had support. As a 30-year-old like me, I have experienced enough to say that there are no regrets when it all ends. But there are still deep things. It’s not just a sport. It’s something I’ve done my whole life, my whole career. I want to continue that. That’s what I’m focusing on and nothing else.”

With her current ranking, it is very difficult for Masha to earn a spot in the women’s singles main round at this year’s US Open arena, unless the organizers of this tournament accept to award her the “controversial” wild-card spot. Up to this point, there is still no information about that, so Masha’s job is to prepare for a campaign… US Open from the group stage. Surely, she has to play, no matter what round it is from, because since returning to the court, Masha has not yet “appeared” in the Grand Slam arena.

But Masha still hasn’t thought about, or doesn’t intend to think about, that at the moment: “It’s not something I think about, it’s not part of my job. Simply, I have to think of an optimistic reality, which is that I have returned after a long absence. The penalty, combined with my injury, caused me to be absent for almost 2 years. Now, the importance of tournaments is more present in my mind than whether I can or cannot participate in the US Open. World Team Tennis is a great addition to my schedule between now and the end of the season. I don’t really plan on competing here, but I can use the matches as extra bonus funds to prepare for the official matches. Playing in front of a crowd, going back to where you played before, in any tournament, is always great.”