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A year ago, girls at Ajigbeda Girls Secondary School in Lagos State knew next to nothing about the game of basketball and getting a chance to represent the state at a national championship was the last thing on their minds.

All that has changed.

Ajigbeda Girls Secondary School won the recently held finals of the Milo Basketball Championships for Lagos State and thus secured the ticket to represent the state at the next stage of the tourney, which is the Western Conference scheduled to come up in June at Ibadan.

For the young girls who say they are ready to fly the state’s flag high at the basketball event, it is all thanks to the Hope4Girls foundation.

“I feel very happy and grateful to the coaches and Hope 4Girls for all their support” a member of the team disclosed.

Akiode’s project

A brain child of former Nigerian basketball player, Mobolaji Akiode, ‘Hope 4 Girls’ is dedicated to the increased participation and empowerment of disadvantaged young African women in sports and education. Because of the initiative and the desire to help the coming generation of women, Akiode said she quit her accounting job at American Cable sports company, ESPN and returned to Nigeria to set up the basketball camp to help young girls in the country. She had been a member of the 2004 Nigerian Olympic basketball team.

“This is such a great achievement mainly because a year ago this school didn’t even have a basketball team and with just a little support from us the girls really showed how much they love basketball and hope4girls!,” Akiode said.

The former WNBA star added:

“Although we would have had more schools enter, our academy currently works with eight schools. It’s just unfortunate those games masters are not as dedicated as we are and are holding the girls back. My motto has always been giving these children an opportunity to explore their creativity and you will see greatness in them.

“As for me I’m just so proud of them and their hard work, they make me feel like I should do more and support more. To me they are champions and anything that happens in the regional is icing on the cake,” she added.

Making a champion

Iyabo Yusuf, lead camp administrator of the foundation further explained the journey at making the new champions.

“Hope4girls introduced basketball to eight girls secondary schools in District IV of Lagos State Educational Board in March 2010 during the Princess Classic Camp and Ajigbeda Girls Secondary School happens to be one of the schools,” she said.

“The students of these said schools have never played basketball before, and after the camp, about 200 girls were enrolled into the Princess Academy from the eight schools”.

As part of Hope4Girls’ plan to empower young Nigerian girls through sports and education, the organisation reduced the 200 girls to 60 girls using their academic performances and commitment to the game as part of the criteria for the screening. Sixteen girls from Ajigbeda Girls Secondary School scaled the screening and their performance in the Hope4Girls academy has been remarkable.

Other schools in the academy include; Ideal, New Era, Wesley, Gbaja, Itolo, Clegg and Surulere Girls Secondary Schools.

Iyabo noted that emerging as champions wasn’t a stroll in pack the Ajigbeda Girls.

“The challenges were posed mostly (by the) District VI representative, which is Ilupeju Grammar school; this school has been representing Lagos State in the Western Conference for the last three years with a bunch of experienced players compared to the girls that started the game a year ago. But with the help of God and hard work of our coaches, we were able to defeat Ilupeju in the final 15-10 points”.

Looking ahead

Already looking ahead, Iyabo said the new goal is making it to the next stage of the championship, which is the Western Conference scheduled to come up in June at Ibadan, Oyo State.

“We are in the same zone with Delta, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kogi and Osun States.

Looking at the vast experience of Oyo and Delta in the game, we are working out a strategy on how to pick a ticket to the national level of the championship,” she said.

For Iyabo, the outstanding player is the captain of the team, Saidat Ali, 14, of Senior Secondary (SS)2. She led the team to victory with her last minute 3 pointer.

Aside the latest feat by the foundation the body had last year also helped two girls secure scholarships to study in the United States amongst other projects it is presently executing.

At the moment, Akiode, is he reliving her experiences as a blogger with ESPN where she talks about experiences like the one she is currently having at the National Youth Service Camp in Abuja.

“I created Hope4Girls to try to better the lives of underprivileged girls. The game of basketball was great to me, and I want to share with others the opportunities it gave me. Of course, I’m not the first athlete to try to inspire others. [But] I want Hope4Girls to have the same impact as many other conscientious charities by athletes, which tackle poor education, address social inequalities and inspire youth.

“Trying to run H4G hasn’t been easy. If you think getting support for girls’ sports is difficult in America, you can’t even imagine the bigger obstacles in trying it in Nigeria. But as the great Muhammad Ali would say, “Impossible is nothing!”

In the course of discharging my duties as a sports journalist, I have come across people who have bluntly accused sports journalists of being responsible for the rot in the Nigerian sports sector.

I have often defended my colleagues and I, arguing that the charge is akin to holding political reporters responsible for bad leadership in the country.

After careful review of the situation, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that we are more than culpable. As journalists we are expected not only to faithfully report on society but to go a step further to hold those who activities we reflect in our media and whose activities impinge one way or another on the health of society, accountable.

That is where we have been remiss as sports journalists. That the different sports in Nigeria particularly key ones like football, boxing, athletics and basketball, which in decades past thrust Nigeria into global limelight, have atrophied right before our eyes makes us as guilty as the sports administrators who have through acts of omission or commission, run them down.

As watchdogs, we have not asked the hard questions but have preferred to cuddle the army of misfits and charlatans who have superintended our sports. We accept at face value the lies and half-truths peddled by these administrators instead of digging deep to unearth the truth.

It is for this reason that we find individuals not particularly distinguished either by sharp intellect or sound moral judgment building empires and carving out fiefdoms while the sports entrusted to them decays.

How else do we explain the matter of Habu Gumel and volleyball? How do you explain the fact that the man has spent the whole of eighteen years as President of the Nigerian Volleyball Federation and in the intervening period has been a member of the International Volleyball federation and the sport is dead in this country?

The only plausible explanation is because as journalists, we let him get away with it. Have we engaged him enough to tell Nigerians while he should continue in that position when his nearly two decades tour of duty has not been meaningful? Eighteen years in the life of an individual is a long time, long enough for him to record ground-breaking achievements. If there had been a modicum of seriousness on the part of Gumel, would Nigerian volleyball not have appropriated a spot in the commanding heights of the sport globally?

Anyway, this piece is not about Gumel.

It is about how we can pull sports writing from the mud into which our indifference and sometimes criminality, plunges it daily.

Re-inventing ourselves

We have come to the point where we must look ourselves in the eye and tell ourselves the truth and that truth as we are wont to say here in Nigeria is bitter. And it is that sports journalism is going to the dogs; it is getting alarmingly pedestrian with a new generation of practitioners who have neither the inclination nor the competence to faithfully discharge their duties. The situation in our profession has become like the situation in the banking industry where economic recession forced jobless graduates to seek to become bankers with a good many of them managing to squeeze themselves into banks and ultimately helping in the collapse of some of them.

While it is evident that there is still a crop of decent and professionally minded sports writers who are still able to challenge the rabid status quo with a view to bringing about a change in the way sports is run in this country, we have in the main, mercenaries and journeymen whose stock-in-trade is to massage the bloated egos of our for the most part, vacuous and mercantilist sports administrators. Given this, it is not surprising to see the clear lack of will on the part of most of us to see for instance, the crisis in Nigerian football come to an end.

While a good many of us like to reminisce about the good old days of Sunday Dankaro, Mahmoud Kadiri and Patrick Okpomo in football administration for instance, few are willing to exert the mental energy required to make the present superintendents of Nigerian football administer the game like these gentlemen mentioned, failing which we make things unbearable for them.

Looking at the profession today, it is hard to imagine that it produced brilliant minds like Fabio Olanipekun, Walter Oyatogun, Yinka Craig, Sunny Ojeagbase, Frank Ilaboya, Tayo Balogun, Chris Eseka, Robert Ndabai, Mitchell Obi,

Ejiro Omonode, Kunle Solaja, Ikeddy Isiguzo, Patrick Odili, Segun Adenuga to name a few of them.

We desperately need to do some soul searching; we need to re-invent ourselves for it is only by doing so that we can put ourselves in the position to help lift Nigerian sports from the morass into which greed and incompetence has plunged it by pointing the way forward through informed objective commentaries and analysis. To do otherwise would be to sentence sports to certain death.

When the junior tennis national team boards the plane to Botswana tomorrow, they will be going to the Southern African country to once again prove to the rest of Africa that Nigeria is rising again in the game.

Twenty years ago, Nigeria sat comfortably at the pinnacle of tennis on the continent but things went awry.

Now it seems that the ‘giant’ of Africa is rising again to take up her position as the leader in the sport. The team of six players and two coaches has four male and two female players who have vowed that they will be giving an early Easter present to Nigerians.

Sarah Adegoke, who will play in the 14 and under category said at their practice venue in Lagos on Thursday that:

“We have to make sure that we come out tops in Botswana; we are definitely going to surprise a lot of people.

The Ibadan-based player also added that the tours of Ghana and Togo have prepared her for the trip to Botswana.

“In Ghana, we showed the stuff we were made of but now even though the games will be harder and tougher, we are prepared for the challenges ahead.” She also spoke on her West African nemesis, Ghanaian, Elizabeth Archimpong, who defeated her in the finals of the Ghana competition.

“I do not know what happens to me when I meet Elizabeth – it just seems that I forget my game and get all jittery and nervous and that was what happened in Winneba.”

This view was corroborated by her coach, Mohammed Ubale, who said he has been working on mental toughness for his young players.

“We have had times in the past when the players have frozen on the big stage but that has to do with tour experience and the team has some tours under their belt now. Going for more competitions is the only way to prepare these kids – there is no other way.”

The team, after their triumph in Ghana had gone on a two-week programme to Togo where the Nigerian team also came out tops, a development that helped this team prepare very well for their Botswana expedition.

Tough task

Bulus Husseini, a former national player who has had coaching stints in the United States of America said the coach has a lot of work to prepare the team for the task ahead. He says the South Africans and the North Africans always have a mental toughness about them that the Nigerians must copy:

“The coach should work on the players’ fitness, skills, tactical awareness, perseverance, mental toughness and psychological fitness” and he also added that “the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) needs to work much harder by introducing a lot of junior tournaments” like the NNPC/Chevron Junior Masters tournament which ends today (Sunday) which at the moment are almost non-existent, Husseini said.

He continued: “The NTF should have regular meetings and many junior and senior tournaments should be introduced to offer the players much exposure. Presently we have about four senior and one junior functional tournaments in our yearly calendar; these are grossly inadequate compared to the situation three decades ago”, Husseini said.

After the championship

Most of the players that will be representing the country have had their future brightened by plans designed to help achieve the goal of producing tennis players who will improve to later on play on the ATP and WTA circuits.

Samuel Omoile, who is one of the players representing the country in Botswana, is on his way to the famed Sanchez Vicario tennis academy in Barcelona, on account of the NNPC/Chevron initiative. He has been admitted for a three-year programme and that will culminate with him turning pro in 2014.

“I have to make sure that this opportunity does not pass me by. I want to be one of the best players in the world like Roger Federer,” Omoile said.

For him to get that dream on the road, he must first beat the best juniors that other African countries have to offer and that quest will start on Tuesday in Gaborone.

The Nigerian team was camped in Lagos and the male players used the 12th NNPC/Chevron tournament to prepare adequately for Botswana. The two girls – Sarah Adegoke and Afolarin Akosile trained with their male counterparts for the one week that they were in Lagos. The team is billed to depart for Gaborone, Botswana by 11pm, Sunday night aboard South Africa Airways.

The tournament had to be moved to Botswana from Egypt where it was originally slated on account of the political upheaval that swept the country in February. The competition will end on April 8, 2011.

As captain of the Super Eagles, Stephen Keshi was known as the ‘Big Boss’ for his no-nosense style on and off the pitch.

Years later when he became coach of the Hawks, Togo’s national football team, he retained something of that attitude, a fact that helped him qualify the West African country for its first ever World cup in 2006.

He failed, however, to lead the squad to the World Cup after falling out with officials of the Togolese Football Federation (TFF).

One year later, in February 2007, the TFF re-engaged Keshi for a friendly against Cameroon, but the questions concerning his dismissal continued to linger. The rumours at that time were that he (Keshi) wanted to manage the career of Nigerian-born Togolese star, Emmanuel Adebayor but because the former Arsenal player did not agree to the proposal, Keshi dropped him to the bench.

His second stint with the Togolese squad proved to be short-lived with the former Nigerian international showing up in Mali to lead the country to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in Angola.

Keshi, who was laid off by Mali after the 2010 Nations Cup in Angola, also lost out to Samson Siasia, in the race to become the coach of the Super Eagles in November.

Third missionary journey

After losing out to Siasia, Keshi weighed his options and last Tuesday, March 22, he made a dramatic return to the job he had handled and lost twice. TFF President, Gabriel Ameyi called a press conference in Lome to reveal that a temporary arrangement had been reached with Keshi to lead the team once again.

He has assigned him the job of leading the Hawks to Blantyre for yesterday’s 2012 African Cup of Nations Cup qualifier against Malawi.

So what is different now?

Keshi is now back in his third stint as Togo coach. He has successfully weathered the storms of the accusations about his wanting to manage Adebayor. With the passage of time, the world has come to know that Adebayor is not an easy player to manage as he has shown first at Arsenal and then at Manchester City.

Whether his erratic behaviour will be curbed by the ‘Special One’, Jose Mourinho, at Real Madrid remains to be seen.

Keshi was welcomed heartily by Togolese football fans at the team’s first training session on Tuesday where he smiled and waved to fans who had come to watch the exercise.

But there could be a cog in the wheel with the naming of Emmanuel Adebayor in the list of 22 players; the former African Player of the year striker had ostensibly retired from the national team last year after the Togolese bus was attacked in Cabinda, shortly before the Nations Cup in Angola leading to the death of three persons.

Instability in Togo football

Togo’s football administration is one that can be said to be worse than their neighbour’s, Nigeria’s. The tiny West African country has a penchant for hiring and firing coaches and the football community surely must be wondering why Keshi returned after previous emabarrassments.

Since February 2009, Togo has had four coaches- Otto Pfister, hired after Keshi’s sack also quit the team over player bonuses before a ball had been kicked in Germany in 2006 but returned to the team for the opening 1-2 loss to South Korea.

Frenchman Patrice Neveu was expected to replace German Otto Pfister as the coach of the Hawks last month but his appointment was blocked by the government. Neveu was appointed by Gnassingbe Eyadema but when the son of the former Togolese president was voted out of office, Tata Avlessi, the TFF President became reluctant to endorse an appointment packaged by the previous regime. Thierry Froger resigned to take charge of French side Nimes earlier this month.

The national team players have also staged protests at various times over the World Cup bonuses of about $200,000 each, with additional payments.

The future of Keshi and Togo interwoven

As a football player, Keshi achieved many feats – the first Nigerian player to play in the Belgian league and ensured that the lexicon; foreign-based became entrenched in football journalism in the country. He has also become the first Nigerian coach to manage the affairs of three national teams – Nigeria, as assistant to Shuaibu Amodu, as coach of Togo and then Mali. Now, he has thrust himself back into the limelight perhaps to prove naysayers wrong.

If he can lift the Hawks to the heights of 2005 and 2006, then maybe Keshi will have proven beyond any doubt that he has the capability to coach at the highest level.

Under Samson Siasia there seems to be a revival of wing play by the Super Eagles and that means that the transition from midfield to attack will be faster and more direct.

The likes of Ahmed Musa and Victor Moses are very fast and skillful and are able to attack down both wings. There is also Osaze Odemwingie, who can also do the job of a winger.

Chukwuma Akuneto, a former Nigerian international and presently first team coach at English league outfit, FC United believes, there are no easy games in today’s football.

Akuneto proposes that, the Eagles have to monopolise ball possession.

“Repossession of the ball will be very important and we need to play high and wide – either with three strikers or two wingers.

“The Eagles have an array of players who are exceptional going forward so we need to win possession back and let them go and destroy the opposition. What this means is that we can’t wait for them to lose possession but we go get the ball or make them lose it by applying pressure.”

He also added that the defensive players must push high up the pitch to congest the play in the Ethiopian half.

“We must press with a high line in front – the attackers have to put pressure on their defenders so we can win the ball back closer to their goal or they decide to just launch the ball into our half of the pitch thereby conceding possession,” Akuneto added.

But there are dangers of pressing that high like Barcelona does and he advises that the Super Eagles defenders must concentrate a hundred per cent to ward off counter attacks, which may be the strategy of the East Africans.

“The Concentration of our defenders, including the defensive midfielder and goalkeeper becomes very crucial in this game because we don’t want to be caught out by the long ball over the top or by a counter attack.

“We want to win the ball back close to their goal and allow our creative and penetrative players go do the business and more importantly we want to make them feel in constant danger like a team under constant threat and attack – a sort of psychological battering,” Akuneto concluded.

Red Bull racing team will go into the new season, starting today, confident that they still have the fastest car on the circuit and with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber in tandem, it is hard to look any further for the team that will be triumphant at the end of the season.

But you can also never write off the McLaren team, especially with former champions as drivers. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button will definitely have their say in this year’s championship and also mention will be made of the Ferrari team with Fernando Alonso, who contrived to throw away the title in Abu Dhabi last year.

All in all with the new adjustments to the engines of the cars and the other developments it promises to be a year that will put all race car aficionados on the edge of their seat as the drivers and cars go flying around the corners of the Australia Grand Prix circuit where it will start to the majestic Yas Marina circuit in Dubai.

F1A innovations for the 2011 season

Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) is back after a year on the sidewalk. KERS helps to draw more power from the engine whilst the car brakes and this energy is stored in a battery and made available to the driver in fixed quantities per lap via a steering wheel-mounted ‘boost button’.

Cars on average get an extra 80bhp from KERS, which is about 10 per cent more power from the engine. Though this has not been made a compulsory attachment, almost all the racing teams apart from Virgin, HRT and Lotus, have it installed in their cars. Renault has also made individual innovations to its car which includes the forward-facing exhaust while Toro Rosso has a ‘double floor’.

New adjustable rear wings can be moved from the cockpit which lends itself to more speed at corners and when overtaking. These wings will reduce the drag effect on the car it is pursuing. However, there are restrictions to this usage – which will be hard to interpret as the season begins today in Australia – the wings can be used in practice and qualifying, but can only be used during the race if the chasing car is less than a second behind its prey. There will also be pre-determined points where it can be activated. Reports from testing sessions before the season’s opener hint at an additional 12-14kmph to the driver, if used in the right way and it is actually more effective on straight laps.

Now the tyres are specified to become softer so that they will deteriorate at a faster pace – this will create more pit-stops per car per race. And the tyre supplier has been changed from Bridgestone to Pirelli in one of the most glaring adjunct decisions taken by the FIA. There are also more restrictions on the dry weather tyres; also driving styles will come under the microscope.

The clause in the FIA regulations outlawing team orders has been removed. This will definitely attract a re-shuffling of how racing chiefs organise or prioritise the two drivers representing each racing team like what happened between Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, where Massa was clearly instructed to slow down for Alonso to overlap.

And at the practise session on Friday, McLaren’s Jenson Button set the fastest time in practice on Friday ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, was in second practice at Albert Park.

Nigerian polo teams have for decades been flying the flag of this country at numerous international polo events, but none has attracted rave reviews like the El-Amin’s participation at the just concluded Dubai Polo Gold Cup Series.

Weeks after the Nigerian elite field of world stars and their Arab friends tangoed in the prestigious Dubai Polo Cup tournament, highly placed individuals and the media are still talking about the glamorous.

One such review came from none other than the life chairman of the Nigerian Polo Federation, Abdulmumuni Kabir, a traditional ruler (emir) who alongside other Arab kings and royalty, gave the event a regal touch.

The royal father who witnessed all the games in the Gold Cup series, singled out El-Amin for special mention, noting that Nigerian polo will eternally be grateful to Mohammed Babangida and his team for putting country on the global stage.

A place in history

Kabir, who described El-Amin’s campaign for honours in Dubai as an eye opener, says that history will reserve a special place for the Nigerian flag bearers, as the first African team to play in Dubai and in the Gold Cup Series.

“Dubai Gold Cup’2011 polo tournament may have come to an end, but the memories of watching the Nigerians making their fatherland and the African continent proud in a high class polo event that is dominated by some the best players from Argentina and Europe, will last a lifetime,” he said.

He noted that under his leadership, the Nigeria Polo Federation will continue to encourage Mohammed Babangida and his El-Amin polo organisation because of their zeal, commitment and focus, which are the hallmarks of trustworthy ambassadors that they are.

“Between goals and success, there is one crucial factor, passion. Passion is the will to win, the strength within, the courage that ignites success. These are some of those special tributes that makes El-Amin the best polo team in Nigeria today, if not the whole of Africa,” Kabir said.

The Polo Federation President, Francis Ogboro, who cheered El-Amin in all their games described their participation in the Gold Cup series an historic outing that further confirmed Nigeria as one of the leading polo playing countries in the world.

The NPF boss who hailed Babangida and his boys for putting up a brave campaign in a highly competitive field, despite the glaring shortage of the needed horse power to compete at such an international stage, said the Gold Cup trip was loaded with a lot of positives that would greatly enhance the game of polo in Nigeria.

“The experiences and the lessons to take home are quite many, but it is quite interesting to see El-Amin making their mark on rented horses where their opponents are fortified with their best mounts and are enjoying the full complement of three Argentine professionals each.”

He said apart from the numerous business openings that the Dubai Gold Cup offers, the Polo Federation intends to use the Dubai experiences to improve the game locally in terms of tournament organisations, Grounds maintenance, strict adherence to rules of the game and repositioning of polo as a powerful corporate sports with its highly revered marketing attributes.

Ogboro, who noted that the Gold Cup is a major part in the series of exposures aimed at preparing the Nigerian players ahead of the forthcoming Federation of International Polo Zone D Polo World Cup qualifiers billed for Malaysia in June, said Nigeria is blessed with a lot of talents who are capable making an indelible mark on the global stage.

Adding colour to the tourney

Apart from eulogising El-Amin for their skills and cohesive display of team work, the Arabs who apparently didn’t know the game of kings is as popular in Africa just as it is in Argentina, USA and in Europe, were full of praises for Babangida and his African team mates.

Arab media follows fashion dictates. For years, glossy magazine stories about the high life in Dubai were the only diet one could get. Now, however, the tide has changed to sports, and the flavour of the month is the participation of Nigeria’s EL-Amin in this year’s Dubai Polo Gold Cup Series.

There is some justification for this. Since the beginning of the year, the Arab world has been treated to high profile sporting championships, with all the big names in golf, tennis, rugby and now polo, descending on the glittering Dubai city, and the media cannot just ignore it.

To the residents of Dubai who trooped out in their droves to watch the Nigerians play, it was a life time experience for a city that has been so infatuated with superlatives, but in ten fleeting days they were really thrilled by the top firing Nigerians whose training seasons attracted a capacity crowd.

Some of the notable Arabs who were impressed with El-Amin’s enthusiasm and participation in the Gold Cup series include Chairman of Dubai Polo & Equestrian Club, Rashid Al Habtoor who led his Mahra team, patron of Dubai Falcons, Ghantoot polo boss, Saeed Bin Dral and the Jordanian, Faisal Yabroudi who powered his DCC Sumaya in the Gold Cup.

Gold Cup Tournament Chairman and Habtoor Polo patron, Mohammed Al Habtoor who hosted El-Amin and the Nigerian contingent to a farewell dinner, said EL-Amin as added real international colour to the event.

Faris Yabhouni, whose Abu Dhabi team defeated Dubai Falcons in the final to win the Gold Cup, says he is looking forward to playing the Africans next year in the high profile series played under the patronage of the Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Sashid Al Maktoum.

“Dubai has reached a critical mass and has positioned itself as a trading and service hub in an oil rich region, and now sports particularly the king of games, is warming up to complement global capitalist role model,” he said.

Maria Sharapova, the girl who left Siberia on a road to fame and fortune, still has unfinished business in an injury-blighted career that has so far brought three grand slam titles.

Away from the lucrative endorsements, the former world number one Russian’s appetite for hard work remains unchanged as she targets the two prizes that would complete her Cinderella journey – an Olympic gold medal at Wimbledon next year and a French Open title.

Sharapova, 23, missed the 2008 Beijing Olympics because of a shoulder injury. It remains a painful memory for a young woman who, despite the American accent and Florida mansion, still loves the country of her birth.

“It’s a huge, huge goal for me,” she told Reuters by telephone en route to the launch of the WTA’s Xperia Hot Shots – an Internet-based show that will follow six Tour players around the world, on and off the court.

“It was massively disappointing for me to miss the Beijing Olympics because I’ve always wanted to be an Olympian. “Growing up in Russia it was always a big part of our culture and more than anything I could feel what an honour it was to represent our country and watch the flag go up.

“I used to cherish watching it and hopefully I can look forward to becoming an Olympian in London next year but first I have to make the team because that’s a tough ask in Russia with so many good players.”

The first slam at Wimbledon

Sharapova came to prominence as a 17-year-old at Wimbledon when she stunned Serena Williams to win the title in 2004. A U.S Open title followed two years later and she won the Australian Open in 2008. The French Open, however, has always proved frustrating with a 2007 semi-final place her best effort.

“I’ve always said the clay court season is the toughest part of the year for me,” Sharapova said. “But it’s also one that I really enjoy. I love challenges. Physically, I feel I’m getting better and better at the clay court season.

“It’s the one grand slam I haven’t won and I’d love to have that on my resume.”

With Serena Williams sidelined by injury and health issues, her sister Venus also struggling and Justine Henin retired again; the women’s game lacks the rivalries that illuminate the men’s grand slams.

“There is a newer generation coming up,” said Sharapova who heads to Miami in confident mood after reaching the Indian Wells semi-finals last week, losing to world number one Caroline Wozniacki. “I think it’s an exciting time in our sport.

“Rivalries take time to develop and with Serena missing and Justine now retired I hope that that will be the case this year,” added the world number 13.

“Serena is a big champion, a big icon in our sport so to see her away from the game for a long while is obviously disappointing.

Hopefully we’ll see her return very soon because I enjoy competing against her.” With the virus that laid her low after the Australian Open clear and her shoulder in good shape, Sharapova is relishing the prospect of playing in Miami after missing the tournament for the last three years.

“It’s almost like home,” she said. “I love the eclectic Latin fans there and it’s one of my favourite events. I’m happy with my form too after my run at Indian Wells. I feel like I’m getting to where I want to be.”