Maria's Best Friend - Maria Sharapova...

[Jughead]

If I had gotten a chance to cast a vote I probably would have voted for "Maria first, but also cheer for Sharapova." She's not my favourite, but I absolutely love her determination on the court. It makes it really fun to bet on her which I do almost as often as I do with little Masha (not big bets mind you).

She'll make it interesting by losing the first set and you think she's out of it but then she'll just will herself back into the match. She'll hit an amazing cross court winner for a service break, pump her fist and just yell out. And I can't help but get on board with her competitive fire. "You go, girl! Win me that money!"

I did lose on her when Oudin knocked her out of the US Open.

I was going to ask how long she's resided in the US since her English is excellent, but I googled her apparently she's been living on this side of the pond since she was nine. Although given her on court personality, it wouldn't have surprised me if I had read that she'd only started living in the US recently but her determination to excel at the language prompted her to practice non-stop to get her to where she is now.

I can just picture the headlines:

Tennis star, Maria Sharapova outlasts 7 year old Ted Barriss to win the 2009 US National Spelling Bee for second graders. After an exhausting three hundred and twenty three rounds of action the 22 year old, Russian born, Sharapova, finally prevailed when Barris failed in his attempt to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

"It was like, you know, really tough," Sharapova said after her eventual triumph. "I really, you know, tried to focus on the 'S' words but I have to, you know, admit that that one really threw me for a loop."

A fully disheartened Barriss was left in tears following his defeat in a final that needed nearly four hours to complete.

"He put up a very good fight, you know," Sharapova added graciously when asked if fatigue played a factor in the final outcome. "I've had to put in a lot of hard work to, you know, get my game up to where I want it to be, and I think, you know, that maybe it was more a lack of experience on his part.

"He'll learn that, you know, asking to have the word included in a sentence when he doesn't, you know, recognize it is something that you just have to do. It's like in tennis, you know, the chances go as quickly as they come and you have to take them when they're there, you know, if you want to have any sort of chance at victory."

[JimM]

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[wprusak]

Just as long as Sharapova doesn't have to do a spelling bee in Moscow with like real Russian words! Little 7year old Igor, product of the Muscovite school system, would kick her butt, errr dupa. You know those crazy Cryllic letters will drive her wild and she will double fault on every other word.

Sharapova, please spell spacebo (thank you in Russian):

S, arguuuuuah! (make believe this is a Sharapova grunt); p, aaaaaauah! ...

Moderator breaks in, Sharapova your time is up. Point to Igor.

[Jughead]

I guess it's true what they say, you can't go home again...