Former champion Maria Sharapova dropped the first set but fought back to claim a 4-6 6-3 6-1 first-round victory over big-serving Australian Jarmila Groth at the U.S. Open.

Groth, ranked 60th after reaching the fourth round at this year's French and Wimbledon championships, hammered 13 winners in the first set as she applied constant hard-hitting pressure on the 23-year-old Russian.

'I think she came out today and really swung and didn't give me much time to do anything out there,' said 2006 U.S. Open winner Sharapova. 'Against a player like that, who kind of plays the one-two punch type of tennis, it's quite difficult to get a rhythm in the beginning.'

The draw for the last Grand Slam of the year at the US Open in New York?has been released and Maria is the No.14 seed.
In the first round Maria will meet Jarmila Groth of Australia.?In official competition they have played before at Los Angeles last year on hardcourts and Maria won 6-0 6-4.?This match will be played on either Monday or Tuesday.

If Maria can win that match she will play either?Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic or a qualifier?in the 2nd round.?The first seeded player Maria can meet is 18th seed?Aravane Rezai of France?in the 3rd round.

Defending champion Maria Sharapova will return to Tokyo next month, spearheading the star-studded Pan Pacific Open women's tennis tournament, organisers said on Monday.

Twenty-seven players out of the current world top 30 will take part in the $2m hard-court tournament from September 26 to October 2, with only Kim Clijsters, Venus Williams and Justine Henin missing.

Sharapova captured her first WTA singles and doubles titles at the 2003 Japan Open, and also won her first professional title on the ITF Circuit series in Gunma, north of Tokyo, a year earlier.

Eighth seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus overwhelmed fifth seed Maria Sharapova 6-4, 6-1 in Sunday's WTA tournament final here to win her first title of the season.

Azarenka broke Maria three times in the first set then took advantage of 16 unforced errors in the second set by Maria while committing only one to win the 700,000-dollar hardcourt event.

Sharapova, who had won 17 of 20 prior matches, missed a chance to claim her third title of the year and jump above her 15th-place ranking to her best ranking since returning from a shoulder injury in May of 2009.

Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova will be back in Montreal for the Rogers Cup next month, the place where she began her downward spiral in August 2008.

Suffering from shoulder pain, the former world champion was forced to withdraw from the tournament after her second-round victory over Poland’s Marta Domachowska. A series of MRI scans showed two torn tendons. The 23-year-old abandoned the rest of her season as well as missing the first months of 2009.

Since then, she has struggled to regain her form.
But Sharapova believes she has found her groove.