One can only assume she doesn’t realise it, but nothing widens the credibility gap with Maria Sharapova quite so much as the manner of her return. As always with the women’s tour’s most bankable star, who returns to tennis next week after a 15-month doping ban, not a single thing has been left to chance, and no moment of opportunity has been left unexploited.
Sharapova will appear on court at the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart next week – a wildcard entry on the day her ban expires – and to coincide with this her management have coordinated a veritable blitzkrieg of micromanaged synergies. The carefully placed interviews, the speaking engagements, an announced development in her confectionery line, the release of the front cover of her forthcoming autobiography … each day brings a new and meticulously planned announcement. And the more relentless it is, the more awesomely professional, the harder it is to believe these are the sort of people to make a doping cock-up. Why didn’t they know? It was literally their business to know.
Related: Maria Sharapova expects suspicious welcome back into tennis fold
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