2004 Maria Sharapova tennis season

Australian Open series

Sharapova began her season at the Australian Open, as the 28th seed. She lost in the third round to Anastasia Myskina.

European clay court season

Sharapova reached her first Major quarter-final at the French Open, defeating 2003 quarter-finalist Vera Zvonareva en route. She eventually lost in the quarter-finals to Paola Suárez.^[1]

Grass court season

Sharapova won her first title for the year in Birmingham, defeating Tatiana Golovin in the final in three sets. At Wimbledon, Sharapova was seeded 13th, meaning she could have faced a potential fourth round meeting against the French Open champion, Anastasia Myskina, who had defeated her in Australia earlier in the year. However, Sharapova was able to take advantage of Myskina's early exit to reach the quarter-finals, where she dropped her first set of the tournament to Ai Sugiyama, before winning in three sets. In the semi-finals, she faced 1999 champion Lindsay Davenport, trailing by a set and a break before making a comeback to prevail in three sets after the rain appeared to halt Davenport's momentum.^[2]

The final saw Sharapova face two-time defending champion Serena Williams, who had defeated her in Miami earlier in the year, in what was their first meeting. Williams entered the match as the favourite, but Sharapova would produce a stunning straight-sets victory to become the third-youngest woman (after Lottie Dod and Martina Hingis) to triumph at Wimbledon.^[3] The victory was hailed by the media as "the most stunning upset in memory".^[4] By virtue of winning Wimbledon, Sharapova would enter the Top Ten for the first time in her career, and would remain there until January 2009, when she decided not to defend her 2008 Australian Open title due to a serious shoulder injury.^[5]

US Open series

Sharapova entered the US Open as the seventh seed, but she was defeated in the third round by Mary Pierce.

Fall series

During the fall of the season Sharapova played and won consecutive titles at the hansol korea open and at the japan tennis championships thus extending her title tally to 4 .She also reached the final of the zurich open defeating venus williams en route but eventually lost to alicia molik in three tight sets.

WTA Tour Championships

Sharapova qualified for the year-end WTA Tour Championships by virtue of her impressive season, which saw her capture four titles for the year to date. She was drawn in the Black Group along with Amélie Mauresmo, US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva. Sharapova won two of her three matches, the only loss coming to Mauresmo in her first match. Sharapova qualified for the semi-finals after finishing second in the group behind Mauresmo; thus, the semi-final saw her drawn against French Open champion and Red Group leader Anastasia Myskina, which she won in three sets.

The final saw her up against Serena Williams for the third time in the year. After losing the first set, and trailing 0–4 in the final set, Sharapova defeated her for the second (and to date last) time this year, to become the second player in WTA Tour Championships history to win the title on her first attempt (Petra Kvitová would later achieve this feat in 2011).^[6] She would finish the year ranked World No. 4, and be recognised by the WTA as the "Player of the Year" and "Most Improved Player of the Year". Additionally, she would earn $2,506,263 in prize money, the most by any player this year.

Singles matches

Tournament	#	Round	Opponent	Result	Score
Australian Open Melbourne, Australia Grand Slam Hard, outdoor 19 January–1 February 2004
	1	1R	Conchita Martínez Granados	Win	6–4, 6–3
	2	2R	Lindsay Lee-Waters	Win	6–1, 6–3
	3	3R	Anastasia Myskina	Loss	4–6, 6–1, 2–6
Pacific Life Open Indian Wells, United States of America Tier I Hard, outdoor 10 March–21 March 2004
		1R	Bye
		2R	Flavia Pennetta	Win	6–3, 4–6, 6–4
		3R	Sesil Karatantcheva	Win	3–6, 6–3, 6–2
		4R	Anastasia Myskina	Loss	2–6, 1–6
NASDAQ-100 Open Miami, United States of America Tier I Hard, outdoor 24 March–4 April 2004
		1R	Bye
		2R	Shinobu Asagoe	Win	6–2, 3–6, 6–0
		3R	Anna Smashnova	Win	7–5, 6–2
		4R	Serena Williams	Loss	4–6, 3–6
French Open Paris, France Grand Slam Clay, outdoor 24 May–6 June 2004
		1R	Barbara Schwartz	Win	6–3, 6–0
		2R	Rita Grande	Win	6–2, 6–0
		3R	Vera Zvonareva	Win	6–3, 7–6(7–3)
		4R	Marlene Weingärtner	Win	6–3, 6–1
		QF	Paola Suárez	Loss	1–6, 3–6
Wimbledon London, Great Britain Grand Slam Grass, outdoor 21 June–3 July 2004
		1R	Yuliya Beygelzimer	Win	6–2, 6–1
		2R	Anne Keothavong	Win	6–4, 6–0
		3R	Daniela Hantuchová	Win	6–3, 6–1
		4R	Amy Frazier	Win	6–4, 7–5
		QF	Ai Sugiyama	Win	5–7, 7–5, 6–1
		SF	Lindsay Davenport	Win	2–6, 7–6(7–5), 6–1
		W	Serena Williams	Win (2)	6–1, 6–4
US Open New York City, United States of America Grand Slam Hard, outdoor 30 August–12 September 2004
		1R	Laura Granville	Win	6–3, 5–7, 7–5
		2R	Jelena Janković	Win	6–0, 7–6(7–5), 6–1
		3R	Mary Pierce	Loss	6–2, 2–6, 3–6
China Open Beijing, China Tier II Hard, outdoor 20 September–26 September 2004
		1R	Bye
		2R	Tatiana Panova	Win	6–1, 6–1
		QF	Jelena Janković	Win	5–2, ret.
		SF	Svetlana Kuznetsova	Loss	2–6, 2–6
WTA Tour Championships Los Angeles, United States of America WTA Tour Championships Hard, indoor 8–13 November 2004
		RR	Amélie Mauresmo	Loss	5–7, 4–6
		RR	Svetlana Kuznetsova	Win	6–1, 6–4
		RR	Vera Zvonareva	Win	6–4, 7–5
		SF	Anastasia Myskina	Win	2–6, 6–2, 6–2
		W	Serena Williams	Win (5)	4–6, 6–2, 6–4

Singles Schedule

Finals

Singles: 6 (5–1)

Category Grand Slam (1–0) WTA Tier I (0–1) WTA Tier III (1–0) WTA Tier IV (2–0) WTA Tour Championships (1–0)

Titles by surface Hard (4–1) Grass (1–0)

Titles by conditions Outdoors (4–0) Indoors (1–1)

Outcome	No.	Date	Championship	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score in the final
Winner	2.	June 13, 2004	Birmingham, Great Britain (1)	Grass	Tatiana Golovin	4–6, 6–2, 6–1
Winner	3.	July 3, 2004	London, Great Britain (1)	Grass	Serena Williams	6–1, 6–4
Winner	4.	October 3, 2004	Seoul, South Korea (1)	Hard	Marta Domachowska	6–1, 6–1
Winner	5.	October 10, 2004	Tokyo, Japan (2)	Hard	Mashona Washington	6–0, 6–1
Runner-up	1.	October 24, 2004	Zurich Open, Switzerland (1)	Hard (i)	Alicia Molik	3–6, 4–6
Winner	6.	November 13, 2004	Los Angeles, USA (1)	Hard (i)	Serena Williams	4–6, 6–2, 6–4