With the amount of errors I made from both my groundstrokes and my serve, to be able to get it to three sets is not bad.

Unfortunately, by Maria's own admission, the amount of errors she made in her 3rd round match against Melanie Oudin cost her the match. Maria claiming "So if I didn't make those errors, those double faults, I certainly would have won the match." 


Both players had a nervy start to the match on serve and it was difficult for either player to hold. However Maria managed to hold at the key moments and her return game was much stronger, allowing her to take the first set 6-3. 

However Oudin lifted her game and with Maria's level decreasing and serving becoming increasingly more difficult for her, Melanie soon raced to a 5-1 lead. Although Sharapova rallied and got it back to 5-4 Oudin managed to serve out the second set, taking it 6-4.

The third set was full of drama and momentum shifts and both players were having difficulty holding their serve. However Maria, playing at well below her best and at times looking frustrated and uncomfortable was unable to fight off the feisty American and with a mounting error and double fault count surrendered the set 5-7 to Melanie Oudin.

Melanie Oudin is having a breakthrough US Open this year, having all ready defeated Dementieva and now thwarting Sharapova's chances of her first Grand Slam since her return to the tour.

Sharapova's is scheduled to play only two more WTA tournaments this year in Tokyo (end of September) and Beijing (start of October) and after which will have time to recover and sort out any issues with the serve and her new abbreviated motion. Having had a relatively short time to work on her new serving motion it is understandable that there has been relative problems and inconsistency with it.

Nevertheless Maria is going to have to sort out those problems in order to allow the confidence in her serving to grow. If she can't find some sort of happy medium with the serve then the question may be asked; will Maria ever return to the kind of form that saw her capture her 3rd Grand Slam in Australia early 2008. Only time will tell if Maria has the answer.