NEW YORK, Aug 29: When Maria Sharapova’s first Grand Slam match after a 15-month doping suspension ended with a victory at the US Open, she dropped to her knees and covered her face, tears welling in her eyes.

This was merely a win to get to the second round, yes, but it also clearly meant so much more to Sharapova. It meant she was back.

Displaying as much emotion on court as she ever did after one of her five major championships, Sharapova recovered after faltering midway through the match and emerged to beat No. 2-seeded Simona Halep 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 at the US Open over more than 2½ hours Monday night.

“Behind all these Swarovski crystals and little black dresses,” Sharapova told the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd, “this girl has a lot of grit, and she’s not going anywhere.”

So much about Sharapova was the same as it ever was: the shot-punctuating shrieks, the aggressive baseline style, the terrific returning, the sometimes-shaky serving.

Another familiar sight: She gutted out a win.

“It’s been a while,” said Sharapova, who missed additional time after her ban because of injuries. “It almost seemed like I had no right to win this match today. And I somehow did. I think that is what I’m most proud of.”

After leading by a set and 4-1 in the second, Sharapova showed some fatigue and rust, dropping five games in a row. But in the third, Sharapova regained control by going ahead 3-0, using her power to keep two-time French Open runner-up Halep under pressure.

Sharapova had not played at a Grand Slam tournament since January 2016, when she tested positive for the newly banned heart drug meldonium during the Australian Open.

The 30-year-old Russian was allowed back on the tour this April, but she was denied a wild-card invitation for the French Open the next month. The US Tennis Association did grant a wild card to Sharapova, who was once ranked No. 1 but is currently 146th.

It was as if every one of Sharapova’s winners Monday — and she compiled 60, a startling 45 more than Halep — was her way of declaring, “Look out, everybody!”

Halep was among eight women who entered the U.S. Open with a chance to top the WTA rankings by tournament’s end. The draw at Flushing Meadows randomly paired the two players, providing a buzz-generating matchup that managed to live up to the hype on Day 1 at the year’s last Grand Slam tournament.

“I gave everything I had,” Halep said. “She was better.”

And at an event that began without Serena Williams, who is expecting a baby, and is already missing two of its top seven seeded women — No. 7 Johanna Konta, a Wimbledon semifinalist just last month, was upset by 78th-ranked Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 — Sharapova must be considered a serious title contender. She did, after all, win the US Open in 2006.

But Sharapova wasn’t interested in looking too far ahead just yet.

“This is a big win for me, and I will enjoy it,” she said, “then move on to the next one.”

The last match on Monday’s schedule actually finished at 2:04 am on Tuesday: After Sharapova won, the fourth-seeded man, Alexander Zverev, needed to get through an 80-minute first set before eventually beating 168th-ranked qualifier Darian King 7-6 (9), 7-5, 6-4. King is the first player from Barbados to participate in a main-draw match at a major.

Sharapova vs. Halep was a tremendously entertaining and high-quality contest, more befitting a final than a first-rounder.

These two women have, indeed, faced off with a Grand Slam title at stake: Sharapova beat Halep in the 2014 French Open final, part of what is now her 7-0 head-to-head record in the matchup.

On Monday, they traded stinging shots, often with Sharapova — dressed in all black, from her visor, to her dress that sparkled under the lights, to her socks and shoes — aiming to end exchanges and Halep hustling into place to extend them.

“I expected her to hit everything,” Halep said. “Some balls were really good. I couldn’t even touch them.”

Points would last 10 or 12 strokes, or more, repeatedly leaving a sellout crowd of 23,771 in Arthur Ashe Stadium clapping and yelling and high-fiving, no matter which player won them. The chair umpire repeatedly admonished spectators to hush.

Halep blinked at the end of the hour-long first set, double-faulting to face a break point, then watching Sharapova punish a 71 mph second serve with a forehand return winner. That was Sharapova’s sixth return winner; she would finish with 14, more than enough to counter her seven double-faults.

Halep lamented that her serve was “very bad.”

Asked why, she answered: “I didn’t have the timing, the feeling. I don’t know why.”

It was quickly 4-1 for Sharapova in the second set and she held a break point there to allow her to go up 5-1 and serve for the victory. But she couldn’t convert it. Then, only then, did Sharapova struggle for a bit. Her footwork was off. Her forehand lost its way. She would end up losing that game and the next four, too, as Halep managed to force a third set.

But with the outcome in the balance, Sharapova once again looked as if she had never been away, improving to 11-0 in first-round matches in New York.

She was asked during her on-court interview what the low point was while forced off the tour.

“There were definitely a few,” Sharapova allowed, before adding: “But I don’t think this is the time to talk about that.” AP

PARIS, June 11: Right from the start of the French Open final, Jelena Ostapenko made quite clear to anyone unfamiliar with her name, or her game, what she is all about.

Yes, she was just two days past her 20th birthday. Yes, she was ranked only 47th. Yes, she was trying to become the first unseeded women’s champion at the tournament since — get this — 1933. And yes, she was trying to become the first woman in nearly four decades to make a Grand Slam title the first tour-level triumph of her career. None of that mattered to Ostapenko.

She began what would become an enthralling, 2-hour encounter by breaking No. 3-seeded Simona Halep at love with a series of grip-it-and-rip-it shots, eliciting loud, appreciative gasps from spectators. So what if Ostapenko wound up dropping that set, then facing big deficits in the second and third? Ostapenko never wavered, using bold strokes and an unbending will to come back and stun Halep 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 for an unlikely championship at Roland Garros.

“Before the match, 5-10 minutes, I was a little bit nervous,” said Ostapenko, the first Latvian to win a major. “But then, when I went on court, I felt quite free.”

Halep, a 25-year-old from Romania, was the 2014 French Open runner-up and would have moved up to No. 1 in the WTA rankings if she had won Saturday. She appeared headed for a runaway victory when up a set and 3-0 in the second, plus holding three break points for the chance to lead 4-0. But Ostapenko would not go quietly, winning that game and the next three en route to forcing a third set.

“I felt a little bit nervous,” said Ostapenko, the first woman since Jennifer Capriati in 2001 to win the French Open after losing the final’s opening set. “But then I felt: ‘I have nothing to lose, so I’m just going to enjoy the match and do my best.’”

She again summoned a veteran’s resolve down 3-1 in the third set, taking the match’s last five games and, fittingly, striking a pair of winners on the last two points.

“Enjoy, be happy, and keep it going,” Halep told Ostapenko during the trophy ceremony , “because you’re like a kid.”

Sure is. Quite a precocious one.

Ostapenko was playing in only her eighth Grand Slam tournament and never had been past the third round before. Clay isn’t even her preferred surface — she likes grass better, and won the Wimbledon junior title in 2014 — which made this two-week joyride even more unpredictable.

Consider: Last year in Paris, Ostapenko lost in the first round. The year before that, she lost in the first round of qualifying.

“Everybody knows she can play very good, but I think nobody expected (her) to (do) what she did,” said Anabel Medina Garrigues, who began coaching Ostapenko in April.

Asked why Ostapenko never won a WTA Tour event until now, Medina Garrigues began answering, then interrupted herself after 10 words and laughed.

“I mean, I don’t know,” she said. “Actually, it’s something I cannot understand. It’s unbelievable.”

The last woman to win her first tour-level title at a major was Barbara Jordan at the 1979 Australian Open. Not coincidentally, that was also the last time at any Grand Slam tournament that none of the women’s quarterfinalists had previously won a major championship.

So Ostapenko stepped into the considerable opening created by the absences of Serena Williams (who is pregnant) and Sharapova (denied a wild card after a drug ban). Also missing was two-time major champ Victoria Azarenka, while No. 1 Angelique Kerber lost in the first round.

Ostapenko burst onto the scene with a brash brand of tennis. Accenting shots with high-pitched exhales, she likes points quick. The impatience of youth not only showed up in Ostapenko’s play but also, occasionally, in her demeanor. When she’d miss, she would slap her thigh or crack her racket on the red clay or raise a palm as if to say, “What was up with that shot?”

Things went her way to the tune of 54 winners, a remarkably high total that was 46 more than the defensive-minded Halep. Ostapenko also made 54 unforced errors, to Halep’s 10.

When Ostapenko is at her best, Halep’s coach, Darren Cahill said, “You don’t touch the ball. You become a spectator.”

A telling statistic: Of the 33 points Halep won in the first set, only one came via a winner off her racket.

Still, there were plenty of entertaining points during the back-and-forth match between the disparate styles, played in a slight breeze with the temperature at about 80 degrees (above 25 Celsius) and with nary a cloud marking the azure sky.

But the difference on this day: Halep faded at the end of the second and third sets, while Ostapenko surged, bringing her mother — a tennis instructor who taught young Jelena how to play — to tears in the stands.

“I’ve been sick in the stomach with emotion,” Halep said. “Maybe I was not ready to win it.”

Ostapenko certainly was ready, sooner than even she could imagine.