"I have to say that I was really proud to have won that match鈥搉ot because it鈥檚 Maria, but because of the way I handled myself through that entire pressure, from the media side," Mladenovic said in her column. "Because you know that everybody is looking at that match."
Mladenovic saved her strongest feelings for聽Sharapova's lengthy use of meldonium, a drug that appeared on the prohibited list starting in 2016.
"Her story is that she鈥檚 been taking this substance (meldonium) for 10 years... If this substance became forbidden, it means that even in the last 10 years it should have been, it was just that they didn鈥檛 discover it and it was not on the list because they didn鈥檛 know about it," Mladenovic said.
"But the medicine, eventually they found out, so I鈥檓 saying if now it鈥檚 not allowed, it means that even before it shouldn鈥檛 have been allowed."
That's entering a messy gray area given the fact that drugs come and go聽from the banned list often. For example, caffeine used to be聽on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned and restricted list. New drugs were added to the聽prohibited list this year, including medications for attention deficit disorders and eating disorders.
All of that aside, Sharapova is back on tour whether players like it or not, with a ranking already inside the Top 200. She's also聽not the first famous face to return from聽a doping offense.
Andre Agassi hit a low point in 1997 when he failed a drug test for crystal methamphetamine. The results were dropped after the American claimed that a friend had spiked his drink鈥攂ut that聽would turn out to be a聽lie. He won聽five more Grand Slams before retiring in 2006.
In 2007, Martina Hingis tested聽positive for benzoylecgonine (a metabolite of cocaine). Hingis argued聽that the cause of the positive test was contamination and not deliberate ingestion. She was suspended聽for two years, leading to her second retirement. She returned in 2013 in doubles, adding seven聽Grand Slams to her collection.
Marin Cilic was suspended for nine months聽in 2013 after testing positive for the stimulant聽nikethamide. He said he ingested the substance accidentally through glucose tablets. The sentence was reduced to four months, and he would win the US Open the following year.
While those examples are not the same as Sharapova's meldonium case, the聽point is that all three of those players have left their doping suspensions far behind them. It's still too soon to tell if that will ever be the case for Sharapova's reputation.
Her case is so fresh there's still the subject of wild cards helping her enter draws. Expectantly, Mladenovic is against聽it, being more lax towards smaller events needing a star, but thinking the rule for unlimited wild cards is unfair鈥攅specially for majors.
"I think the French Open is going to shine with or without her, I have the feeling," she said.
Her theory will be tested. On Monday, the French federation announced that Sharapova聽won't receive a wildcard聽into the French Open. The news was huge for everyone looking to add their two cents to the still-trending topic.