Sugar Crash: Maria's Up, Down, Then Out 2013

This December, I'm going to attempt to profile a few players to watch in advance of the 2014 season. Leave a comment on any of these postmortems if there is a player you think I overlooked!

It's never too early to practice your "concerned WAG" face

Maria Sharapova has had another interesting, albeit less successful, year. She began 2013 crushing everyone in her path in Melbourne and ended it on an operating bed and many a red carpet. So what happened between January and October that has her with a new(er) coach, a repaired shoulder, and a correspondence gig at the Sochi Winter Olympics this coming February? Let's take a look, Good, Bad, & Ugly style:

The Good

Overall, MaSha's season, despite being pretty much M.I.A. in the second half, was actually pretty good. She showed just how dominant she can be during that ridiculously blazing start in Melbourne and her crushing of Caroline Wozniacki to win Indian Wells, one of her two titles for the year. She also showed that she isn't as far off from beating Serena as we previously thought, by taking a set in the Miami final and playing her in a very tough straight-set loss in the Roland Garros final one round after fighting through her nemesis, Victoria Azarenka, in topsy-turvy three-setter. Even though Serena owned on the red dirt, Claypova wasn't really far behind, defending her Stuttgart title and making the Madrid final.

(P.S. MaSha also officially started dating ATP heartthrob Grigor Dimitrov, and cemented their relationship status by cheering him on vociferously in his second round Wimbledon match. Respect.)

The Bad

The one burning question going into 2014 is whether Shara's shoulder is ready to go. She pulled the plug on her season after her poor loss to Sloane Stephens in Cincinnati, citing right shoulder bursitis. She had a previous surgery on her right rotator cuff causing a ten-month absence from the tour between 2008 and 2009. She has proven that she can come back stronger than ever, but will a second injury be too much for her to reach the summit once more?

The Ugly

"The Ugly" of MaSha's 2013 season is basically the 12 days after her Western & Southern Open exit and the commencement of the U.S. Open. She canned Jimmy Connors (and sent him into a spiraling alcohol-induced depression), embraced the silly, quirky, and splashy rumors of her changing her name to "Maria Sugarpova," and decided to retire her racquet for the year and attend sponsor events instead. It was confusing, and with her recent announcement of joining the NBC Winter Olympics coverage team, you wonder if she's already in a post-tennis state of mind. Sochi is MaSha's hometown, but it's still a bit ... spooky to see how much she has done in the last few months that does not concern tennis in the slightest.

2014 Outlook

For the most part, I think MaSha will be fine. I don't think we will see her revved up in full come January and is vulnerable to an early-round exit in Melbourne, but she is usually so very focused and dedicated to her tennis and I can't see that suddenly stopping, even with her shoulder issues. She had such a good 2013 prior to Wimbledon's Black Wednesday (still finished the year at No. 4) that I can't imagine her falling way off the pace of Vika and Li Na throughout the coming season. I fully expect her to be back to her sporty self going into the clay season.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment!

(Edit: and read this wonderfully relevant article on Sharapova by Chris Clarey.)