MELBOURNE — Russia's search for its next generation of grand slam champions will take time and the country should not expect the success it enjoyed in the first decade of the 2000s overnight, according to Maria Sharapova.
Playing her first match of 2016 after a sore forearm forced her out of the Brisbane International this month, the Russian hammered Japan's Nao Hibino 6-1 6-3 to make the second round of the Australian Open.
Sharapova, who won her first grand slam title at Wimbledon in 2004 aged 17, was in the vanguard of a successful run of the country's women from the mid-2000s that has dried up in recent years.