The night before Maria Sharapova was slated to take to Court Centrale with Jelena Ostapenko in the Rome quarterfinals, the convivial vibe of her press conference was unwittingly scuppered by an innocent question about how she reacted to Ostapenko’s stunning French Open victory last year.

She sighed. “I think it was just a – it was kind of a tough moment for me, I think understandably. And I was quite badly injured at that point. It was like the third week into recovery. I stayed in Europe being hopeful I'd recover in time for the grass season, but that didn't happen.

“I was really – I was supposed to go back home and I told my team I'd rather stay in Europe and see where my recovery can take me. So, my mind, I don't think, was really on to watching that tournament or even down the line I didn't watch too much. It was quite a tough period.”

It was a reminder of the dramatic moments that unfolded in Rome 52 weeks ago when Sharapova learned that she wouldn’t receive a wildcard from the French Open moments before she stepped out onto court for her second-round match against Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, where she promptly tore a muscle in her thigh, an injury that ruled her out into the summer.

After the euphoria of returning from her doping ban, reaching the semi-finals and even being tipped to win the French Open before her participation was even confirmed, Rome suddenly marked the beginning of a period of injuries and doubt, as her thigh injury was quickly followed by a chronic forearm injury that has continued to wreak havoc since the summer of 2017 until April just this year.

Sharapova’s return to the clay courts appears to have marked a turning point. After a run to the Madrid quarterfinals underlined by her vanquishing of her vocal critic Kristina Mladenovic, this week Sharapova has continued her strong march towards she strung together three sterling wins over top 35 players - no. 18 Ashleigh Barty, no. 34 Cibulkova, another critic, and no. 24 Daria Gavrilova. When her form hasn’t been pristine, her fight has picked up the slack and guided her through.

The battle Royale against Ostapenko represented the biggest step of all. From the beginning of the match, Ostapenko demoted Sharapova to the role of a spectator, the quality of the Latvian’s flat, early ball-striking stood levels above and her 5-2 lead should have been even more one-sided but, once again, where Sharapova lacked in her shotmaking, she made up for it in her typical way of being present in every point, every rally, every second. From 2-5 down, she saved two set points with bold second serves, and launched a noisy, focused assault on the Ostapenko service game to scupper the break advantage at the last moment.

Despite eventually losing the first set in a 79-minute thriller that culminated in a tense, tight tiebreak, Sharapova had played herself into form, responded by gritting her teeth and marching through the second set, her point-by-point intensity too much for the Latvian. With the Russian up 5-2 and cruising, Ostapenko came again, fighting back to 5-5 in the third set, the clock ticking over the three-hour mark. But Sharapova recovered, holding serve before saving her best return game of the entire match for 6-5, seeing off the Latvian to reach her first significant semi-final since 2015.

“To get through that …” she said afterward. “You know, you asked me why I smiled at the end of the match. It's like if you're not smiling after all the crap that you're able to go through and you keep pushing yourself and you keep delivering and then you get moments like where you have two match points and you like hit the bottom of the net and then you create more opportunities and then you get it done, yeah, s**t I'm gonna smile. You know what I mean?”

She continued. “It's like, yes. So, I realize these are special moments. And I'm definitely more toward the end of my career than I am at the beginning. And I appreciate this chapter. I don't know how it's going to end, but I sure hope it's on my terms.”

One year later, the landscape of the tour has shifted significantly. Unless she clinches the final two matches in Rome and puts down a true marker, the Russian won’t arrive in Paris the favorite despite the considerably heavier lifting she has done in this clay season compared to the last. But it’s doubtless that she’ll keep pushing herself, and it seems that she is shuffling ever closer to the point where she’ll truly deliver again.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           (Photo Source: Julian Finney/Getty Images Europe)