Is Maria Sharapova washed up?

A little more than a year after the 20-year-old Russian won her second major title, at the 2006 U.S. Open, this question is on the minds of a lot of tennis fans. Sharapova has won just one title this year and has suffered a number of convincing, and embarrassing, defeats. Her latest came last week in the second round of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. Sharapova, playing her first match since the U.S. Open, lost to 18-year-old Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, ranked no. 32 in the world, 7–6(9), 6–2. She’s not certain to qualify for the year-end championships in Madrid, a tournament she hasn’t missed since 2003, her first year on the tour. And even if she does make it, she’ll likely finish with her lowest ranking since her rookie season (Sharapova, currently ranked no. 4 but essentially tied for no. 8 this season, has finished fourth, fourth, and second the last three years).

Sharapova’s slide has caused a lot of speculation about her health and her future. She’s struggled with an injured right shoulder all season, and the extent of the injury and progress of her recovery remain unknown. Robert Lansdorp, the technician who built the young Sharapova’s strokes, told ESPN this week that this Maria is not the same gal he used to know and suggested she needed a coaching intervention (Lansdorp, it must be said, hasn’t thought much of his ex-pupil’s game for some time, even when she was winning). There are also questions about whether Sharapova’s rivals on the tour have solved her rather limited repertoire of shots, or whether the next generation of players, including Azarenka and Agnieszka Radwanska, are ready to steal the spotlight.

The truth of the matter, it seems, is that we expected too much from Sharapova to begin with, and — as is often the case when someone is built up to this degree at a young age — we’re now expecting nothing at all simply because a few things have gone wrong. Sharapova was never that good, at least in terms of variety and athleticism, in the first place. But she’s a lot better than she’s looked this year and ought to win several more major titles before she trades in her rackets and decides to live off the ungodly sums Nike, Canon, et al., have funneled into her bank account the past few years.

All tennis players have strengths and weaknesses that compete with each other. Sharapova’s haven’t changed since she won Wimbledon as a 17-year-old in 2004. Mentally, she’s first rate; few players have as much intensity point after point, match after match. She isn’t much of an athlete, however, despite her height (6 feet, 2 inches) and broad shoulders. In terms of movement, she’s much closer to a Lindsay Davenport than a Venus Williams. But when she has time to set up, also like Davenport (another Lansdorp disciple), she can give the ball a ride.

Here’s where Sharapova’s shoulder, and serve, come into play. When she’s serving well, she has more time to move, and more time to control points. At her best, as she was in that 2004 Wimbledon final against Serena Williams and last year at the U.S. Open, when she dominated Justine Henin in the final, Sharapova doesn’t necessarily win a lot of free points off her serve, but she uses it to set up easy forehands. Her failures this year start with her serve and end with her serve. A few cases in point:

• Australian Open: After barely escaping a first-round upset in scorching heat, Sharapova reached the final without dropping a set before being pummeled by Serena Williams, 6–1, 6–2. Sharapova won 67% of points on her first serve (not bad) but 26% on her second serve (atrocious). She double faulted six times. A few weeks later, she retired in a match in Tokyo and took a month off to rest her shoulder.

• French Open: Despite an obviously weakened serve, Sharapova fought her way into the semifinals against Ana Ivanovic. It wasn’t pretty. The Serbian prevailed 6–2, 6–1. Sharapova broke serve once, but held her serve just twice and lost all five break points against her. She won 25% of points on her second serve and double faulted five times (she only attempted 12 second serves and missed five of them).

• Wimbledon: Another beating, this time at the hands of Venus Williams in the fourth round. Sharapova yielded 19 break points and lost four of them. She double faulted six times and hit her first serves an average of 101 mph (servers usually go for more on grass).

• U.S. Open: Against Radwanska in the third round, Sharapova double faulted 12 times and won 7 of 30 points on her second serve, 23%. Similar to the French Open, she missed close to 50% of her second serves. She hit her second serves an average of 84 mph.

For a decent club player, such ineptitude on serve is rare. For a professional, well, it should never happen, at least to anyone not named Elena Dementieva, Sharapova’s Russian counterpart (who, by the way, is playing better of late: She defeated Serena Williams in the Moscow final yesterday, 5–7, 6–1, 6–1). Compare these numbers to Sharapova’s performance at the 2006 U.S. Open against Henin. In that match, she lost her first service game and didn’t come close to losing another as she made 73% of her first serves. She hit five aces and double faulted four times.

Sharapova has changed her service motion this year and now takes her racket up immediately, rather than first dropping it and then bringing it up in a more traditional loop. In a conversation earlier this year, Lansdorp said he suggested the change, as a way to keep Sharapova’s shoulder healthy, to Sharapova’s father, Yuri (Yuri and Lansdorp do not, to put it delicately, have the best relationship). Henin made the same change, and it took her about a year to get used to it.

It seems that’s what Sharapova is looking at now: a few months more, maybe six or seven, of strength conditioning, together with practice of her new technique. Could she falter for another season? Maybe. But at this point — remember, she’s just 20 — she could take two years off and still win twice as many majors as Davenport, who won three despite playing while the Williams sisters were at the peak of their powers. Justine Henin is a superior player, but often injured, and the latest generation of women, while talented, doesn’t seem to have a dominant champion in waiting. For Sharapova, it’s been a bad year, but nothing more than that.

Mr. Perrotta is a senior editor at Tennis magazine. He can be reached at tperrotta@nysun.com.