Maria Sharapova: Kirilenko and myself had a great time when we first met

World Number 2 Maria Sharapova talked about her next opponent in the Indian Wells tournament – another Russian Maria Kirilenko – after knocking Italian Roberta Vinci out of the third round 6:2, 6:1.

«We met for the first time a long time ago, in the junior days, probably under 12s or under 14s,» Sharapova told reporters of Kirilenko.

«I don’t think we played each other that tournament, I don’t really know what we were doing, we were just running around freely like little girls out of control. I don’t know what you really do at that age. But we were enjoying ourselves! We became friends pretty quickly. I don’t know how it came about, if somebody introduced us, but we kind of hit it off. We were the same age too,» explained the Russian.