Maria Sharapova’s first test of her surgically repaired right shoulder proved brief as the Russian lost a doubles match this morning in her first competitive outing since August.
Sharapova, the former world No.1 and 2008 Australian Open champion, was hindered by a right shoulder injury much of last season and skipped the Beijing Olympics and the US Open before having arthroscopic surgery in October.
She was upbeat despite her abrupt dismissal from the $US4.5 million ($A6.88 million) Masters tournament, as she and partner Elena Vesnina were beaten 6-1 4-6 10-7 by Ekaterina Makarova and Tatiana Poutchek in a first-round match that went to a super-tiebreak after they split the first two sets.

“I’m blessed I can have the opportunity to be here again,” she said of her newfound appreciation for her career.

Maria will start her comeback today at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in the doubles event.  Maria and Elena Vesnina of Russia will play their 1st round match against Ekaterina Makarova of Russia and Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus.

The match is the 4th match on Stadium 1 and the schedule of play begins at 11.00PT (14.00ET, 18.00GMT & 19.00).  It is very hard to predict the exact time of the match but the earliest it could start is around 16.00PT. Unfortunately the match won't be televised anywhere but you can follow the live scores.

Good Luck Maria and Elena!

The doubles draw for the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells has been released and Maria is playing her first tournament since August last year.  Maria teams up with Elena Vesnina of Russia and they will play the unseeded duo of Ekaterina Makarova of Russia and Tatiana Poutcheck of Belarus in the 1st round.If they win the match they will face the 6'th seeded Nuria Llagostere Vives and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.
Maria is playing with Vesnina for the first time and this is Maria's 1st doubles tournament since June 2005.  Even though Maria is more known as a singles champion, she has had success in doubles winning 3 titles.

Good luck maria!

Former world number one Maria Sharapova will only play doubles when she returns to action in Indian Wells next week.

The 21-year-old Russian has been sidelined since last August with a serious shoulder injury that has hampered her for the past two years.

She has already pulled out of planned comebacks in Paris and Dubai this year.

"The healing process takes time and requires things to move more slowly than I would like, but I am taking things one step at a time," she said.

AskMen.com, the largest online men's magazine, announced its ninth annual list of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women Wednesday, and two of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's stars - Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic - are on it.

Sharapova, a three-time Grand Slam singles champion at Wimbledon in 2004, the US Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008, and Ivanovic, who won her first Grand Slam at the French Open in 2008, weighed in at No.83 and No.96, respectively, in Askmen.com's Top 99. Over 10 million votes were cast and the Top 3 places went to actresses Eva Mendes and Megan Fox and Victoria's Secret model Marisa Miller.