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The fortunes of women’s tennis ride on the rather broad shoulders of Maria Sharapova, in particular on the right one, which was surgically repaired last October.

The stately Russian yesterday played her first Grand Slam tournament since Wimbledon in June of 2008, advancing to the second round of the French Open with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus.

There is something aloof about Sharapova that doesn’t inspire the warm-fuzzies that someone like Ana Ivanovic or even Dinara Safina does. But she is a true phenomenon, a 6-foot-2 marketing dream with both good looks and superior athletic ability. Since finally shutting down her troublesome shoulder last August after winning her opening match at the Rogers Cup in Montreal, she has played one singles tournament, going 2-1 last week in Warsaw, before arriving in Paris for Roland Garros.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen [today], how my shoulder is going to feel,” she said after slowly finding her heavy-hitting form to outclass the No. 64-ranked Yakimova.

Sharapova, ranked No. 102 after her inactivity, insists she has been reassured by doctors that the shoulder will return to its former functionality. The operation last October corrected a painful impingement – not a tear.

She has a very loose shoulder joint and, because her serve is such an integral part of her game, doctors are wary about tinkering with it for fear it could have dire consequences on her game.

One might also add, on her bank account.

Sharapova’s website lists her nine principal sponsors, among them Canon, Land Rover, Nike, Tiffany and Co. and Sony Ericsson. At 22, the little girl who left Russia at 61/2 to train at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida is mature beyond her years when it come to financial affairs.

With estimated annual income of between $25-million and $30-million (U.S), she has become a valuable commercial commodity like her fellow Russian Anna Kournikova, only she’s got a lot more game. That may be too harsh on Kournikova, who didn’t have the drive, raw talent and intelligence to accomplish what Sharapova has – namely the No. 1 ranking and Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open.

Where the glamorous Kournikova was a tennis star who morphed into a showbiz superstar, Sharapova is a tennis superstar who has compartmentalized all the related glitz and hoopla into a kind of manageable, parallel package.

“Tennis,” Sharapova said yesterday, “drives everything, drives myself, drives my business, drives everything that I do.”

During her hard times rehabilitating from surgery, she did not touch a racquet for three months, and she got antsy. That’s another part of Sharapova that differs from Kournikova – she has a visceral need to play and compete. “Fifteen minutes before your match when you’re pumping yourself up and going to go out there in front of 20,000 people, you miss that,” she said. “I certainly missed it.”

Against Yakimova in the intimate 4,500-seat stadium nicknamed the Bullring because of its circular shape, Sharapova wore a steel-blue dress with a loose, sheer, Mediterranean blue, sash-like material around her waste.

Along with Serena Williams, 27, and Venus Williams, 29 next month, who both also include fashion as an integral adjunct of their tennis fame, Sharapova is the player all tournament directors covet, the one who confers instant credibility and marquee buzz to an event.

“I can’t wait to wear my new dress on court here. … It is one of my all-time faves,” she wrote on her website before playing Roland Garros. “And, of course, the Tiffany earrings … so beautiful.”

At her postmatch media conference yesterday, there was a nary a question about her new tennis dress or her accessories.

She would probably have preferred otherwise. A young woman, even one who has assets approximating a small corporation, surely wants affirmation of her fashion sensibility.