Sharapova to play for Fed Cup in 2008 (for real)

This time it looks very serious. According to Russia’s tennis team captain, Shamil Tarpischev, Maria Sharapova is planning to play for Russia in 2008 Fed Cup. In an interview with dni.ru, he said:

“When Maria was here for the Fed Cup final, I had a discussion with her, her father, and her manager about Masha’s intentions to play for Russia in 2008. All of them are very positive about it. Sharapova has always wanted to play for our team, however the circumstances haven’t allowed her to do it yet. She is so serious about it that they are considering rescheduling her 2008 tour calendar. However, there are factors that we cannot control. For example, the first match with the Israeli team will be right after the Australian Open. Nobody knows in what condition Maria or any other female player of our team will be.”

Citing the current rules, Tarpischev noted that this time around Sharapova doesn’t have the luxury to pull out of the Fed Cup, if she really wants to participate in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Maria Sharapova is a huge international star and… a marketing machine. By winning an Olympic medal she will become even more popular in Russia and around the world. In many parts of the world, the Olympic medal remains the most prestigious achievement for an athlete.

While I was oversees, I had seen so many Sharapova ads that I had never seen them before in the U.S. market. If Maria plays for Russia in 2008, it would be a nice PR, marketing and professional career move.

It seems Maria understands it pretty well. In her online diary she says:

“Tennis is such an individual sport and you forget how great it is to be a ‘team-mate’ for a change. The girls did an amazing job of fighting it out from behind….nothing like a true Russian character! When Sveta [Kuznetsova] asked me to join them for their flag run around, it was the best moment I had this year on a tennis court. All of us represent our country on a daily basis, but representing it in a team environment, in front of a home crowd, is a completely different feeling…pretty difficult to describe…”

(Sources: dni.ru, onthebaseline.com, mariasharapova.com)
Maria Sharapova