Maria starts her US Open Campaign with a Win!

After just 1 hour and 13 minutes Maria Sharapova pummels Tsvetana Pironka into submission with a 6-3 6-0 win, and looked every bit the fierce competitor, both in her tennis and in debuting her US Open night match outfit.

To give you an idea of the story of the match there was 2 long deuces on Maria's serve, she broke Pironkova's serve 6 times, served 52% first serves in and had only 4 double faults.

Definitely a feature of the match was how well Maria started both sets, establishing herself as the driving force in the match. She played a little in-and-out in the middle of both sets with her serve being tested in two long deuce games, but came through successfully, playing the crucial points better than her opponent.

Sharapova was never really pushed by Pironkova, tested more by her own ability to find consistency and to find the execution needed to apply her attacking gameplan.

If there was one thing Sharapova would aim to work on as she progresses, other than hitting more first-serves, it would be her play at the net. Although, according to the match statistics she won 15/20 net points her volleys and overheads could definitely have been better played. Maria seemed at times reluctant to close the net, electing to back off after many of her first volleys.

Nevertheless Maria can only improve as she continues through the draw at New York and you never want to play your best tennis in the first round, you want to gain momentum and improve with each round. Her next opponent should be relatively straight forward, facing Christina McHale of the USA in the second round.

Interestingly Maria dropped only 3 games in progressing, the same amount of games as her possible third round opponent, Dementieva, and at the moment there's nothing to pick between them.

Maria is undoubtedly one to watch at this year at Flushing Meadows.