Maria Sharapova says that having her fiancé, NBA player Sasha Vujacic, with her during the European swing has helped her on court. Last year, Vujacic was unable to come to the tournaments in Madrid, Rome, Roland Garros and Wimbledon because he was playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, who won the NBA finals and their season lasted through mid-June. Vujacic was traded to the New Jersey Nets this season and his team did not make the playoffs.
"It's been really nice because when he moved to Jersey, we didn't get to see each other that much. This trip has kind of made up for it," Sharapova told reporters after her 6-2, 6-3 win over Klara Zakopalova in the third round of Wimbledon. "You get to know a lot about the person by being with them every single day, which we hadn't really had in our whole relationship. We both enjoyed it. But we've obviously been at tournaments. It's been very hard. We're competitive, so we're doing everything in order for me to win tennis matches."
The 2004 Wimbledon champion also said having her new team in place for a while has also helped. She’s been working with her coach, Sweden’s Thomas Hogstedt, for the past five months, and is still working and traveling with her physical therapist, Juan Reque. She just brought in former Wimbledon semifinalist Vladimir Volchkov as her hitting partner for the grass-court season. Former ATP pro Cecil Mamiit, who worked with her during the clay court season, will be back as her hitting partner during the U.S. summer hard-court swing.
"It's obviously great to have a consistent team," said Sharapova, who will play Peng Shuai in the fourth round. "But it's also a new team and a fresh team for me. I think that's played a big part of this year so far. It was great to get Thomas, because he put a lot of new, fresh perspective in my game. It was just a new voice. Sometimes you can have two different coaches and they tell you the same thing, but sometimes it just gets to you a little bit different for some reason. After being with Michael Joyce for many years, although it was a tough thing to stop working with him and we achieved a lot together, at the end of the day it was a tough but the right thing to do. Yeah, I'm happy so far with Thomas. He's pushed me in the right way. In the tennis world, five months is still not the longest time, but I feel like I'm moving in the right direction."