Maria Sharapova pulls out of Linz Open - 2007

Maria Sharapova pulls out of Linz Open - 2007, due to begin on October 22, citing persistent shoulder pain as the reason for her withdrawal.

Maria, who has also pulled out of the Zurich Open this week, is now in doubt for the season-ending Sony Championships in Madrid from November 6. The former Wimbledon and US Open champion was a shock second-round loser to Victoria Azarenka, from Belarus, in the Kremlin Cup last week.

Maria Sharapova crashes out of Moscow

Second seed Maria Sharapova crashed out of of the Kremlin Cup after her first match at the hands of Belarus teenager Victoria Azarenka on Wednesday. The 18-year-old Azarenka beat Sharapova in straight sets 7-6 (11/9), 6-2 in one hour 49 minutes in their first ever meeting.

"I tried to stay focused and believed I could win the match," Azarenka said. "I do not think Masha (Sharapova) played her best tennis today but the match was a high-level one and I'm really happy to win it." Sharapova, who enjoyed a first round bye, started confidently and was leading the score 5-3 and was serving for the first set.

However, she suddenly lost her nerve allowing the unheralded Belarus teenager to survive three set points and pull the scores level, forcing a tiebreak, which she won after surviving three more set points. In the second set, Sharapova, who was wearing a plaster on her injured right shoulder, looked only a pale shadow of her normal self allowing Azarenka, who is 32nd in the world, to break twice to win the set and the match. "Maybe I was too opinionated when I was leading the score 5-3," Sharapova said. "That was the point where it all started. Had I won the first set everything could have been much better for me."