The reintegration of Maria Sharapova into the tennis fold is gathering pace. The 29-year-old Russian is banned from playing competitively until the end of April, having tested positive for the banned drug Meldonium at this year’s Australian Open, but earlier this month she played in a charity event in the United States alongside the likes of John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova. Now her welcome back into the tennis family will move up another gear when she faces Garbine Muguruza in an exhibition event in Madrid in December.
To appear on court at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas with some former players is one thing, but Sharapova’s meeting with Muguruza is of a different order. The exhibition match – on a playing surface of clay on one side of the court and grass on the other – is being staged on the Manolo Santana Centre Court at Madrid’s Caja Magica, which in the spring stages one of the year’s biggest clay-court tournaments in the build-up to the French Open.
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