Maria Sharapova faces the final climb

Maria Sharapova turned 18 last week and although she probably came of age competitively while winning Wimbledon last year, she has a chance of creating a timely celebration during the next few days.



Maria will become world number one if she wins the title at the $1.3m German Open, and the way she has been growing stronger and trying to add facets to her game no-one should rule it out.



"My aim is to keep improving, to get my schedule right and keep playing well - and the ranking can take care of itself," she said.



However clay, on which the tour is played for the next five weeks, is Sharapova's least favourite surface, which may make it difficult. Seven of the world's top eight, the finest entry the German Open has ever had, will make it more difficult still.



Top seed should be Amelie Mauresmo, though an abdominal injury forced the Frenchwoman out of this week's Warsaw event, and she may be more concerned about Roland Garros in three weeks than defending her German title.


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US star Serena Williams will be many people's unofficial favourite in Berlin, especially as the former French Open champion has it made clear that doing well on clay is a high priority this year.



The two come-back Belgians are also likely to be dangerous. Justine Henin-Hardenne has boldly said there will be more titles to come after her first for seven months on clay at Charleston two weeks ago, while Kim Clijsters produced a marvellous long unbeaten run after spending most of a year recovering from a troublesome wrist.



It was Clijsters to whom Sharapova lost in the final in Miami a month ago, when the teenager seemed well placed to win the second biggest title of her career in her adopted home state.



"Those are chances that I still have to learn to take in my future matches," admitted Sharapova. "She managed to play that little bit better on those big points."



Clijsters became the first unseeded player ever to win back-to-back tier one titles, and afterwards most people expected she would be talking about her brave new world.



Instead she suggested she has little chance of winning at Roland Garros, where she has twice reached the final.



"I have to take it a little bit slow because I cannot afford to have, you know, this (injury) happen again," she said.



"So I have to say I'll be very happy when the clay court season is over."



Nevertheless the evidence suggests Sharapova must either prove that her increasingly powerful game transfers better to red dust than it did, or be faced with consolation of having become just the second professional tennis player ever to be included in People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People list - Kournikova was the first.