News came Tuesday afternoon that Maria Sharapova, the winner of five major tournaments in her long career, would not be offered one of two possible wild cards into the French Open, a tournament she has won twice. She was denied a wild card into the hundred-and-twenty-eight-woman main draw of the event, and she was denied a wild-card entry into the qualifying rounds, which begin in Paris, at Roland Garros, next week. Sharapova needed a wild card to play the French Open because her current ranking is not in the top two hundred, the cutoff to earn an invite to be a qualifier. Her ranking is outside the top two hundred because she has not been earning ranking points, having just returned to the women’s tour at the end of last month after serving a fifteen-month doping ban, which was originally meant to last two years but was reduced on appeal. 查看全文>>