I haven’t quite been the women’s tennis fan since Maria Sharapova sustained her injury a few years ago. I have looked from time to time to see if she has been playing but never caught any of her matches.

Now, there is this piece in the Wall Street Journal which chronicles her way back into tournament tennis.

Maria Sharapova is one of the hardest workers on the women’s tennis tour. She beats balls across nets and labors through agility training for hours on end. Those who know her and have coached her say unlike a lot of pros, she actually seems to enjoy playing tennis.

She was such a precocious talent and has been so prolifically photographed in glamorous advertising campaigns it’s easy to forget that she’s only 23, that she won three Grand Slam titles before attaining legal drinking age and has reached No. 1 on four different occasions—most recently in May, 2008, after she took the Australian Open without dropping a set.

As the U.S. Open approaches, Ms. Sharapova is still trying to fully regain the form she lost that same year after undergoing shoulder surgery, a procedure that sapped much of the bite from her lethal serve.

I am hoping she has a good U.S. Open.

By the way, Canon, her television commercials for your cameras were noteworthy. If she is not under a continuing contract, she should be.