Maria Sharapova returned to professional tennis on Wednesday after a 15-month doping ban, completing a one-hour training session on an empty center court less than 10 hours before her first competitive match since January 2016.
Handed a much-debated wild card, Sharapova will play Roberta Vinci in the opening round of the Porsche Grand Prix.
On Tuesday, Simona Halep and Alize Cornet joined the likes of Caroline Wozniacki, Dominika Cibulkova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Angelique Kerber and Sharapova’s first opponent, Vinci, in publicly opposing wild cards for players returning from a doping ban.
