{"id":246349,"date":"2020-02-27T01:50:03","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T06:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=246349"},"modified":"2020-02-27T18:09:11","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T23:09:11","slug":"sharapova-retires-from-tennis-at-age-32-with-5-slam-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/02\/27\/sharapova-retires-from-tennis-at-age-32-with-5-slam-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharapova retires from tennis at age 32 with 5 Slam titles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Sharapova made the quarterfinals of the French Open, her best Grand Slam performance of 2009 (Photo by Misty, Sydney, Australia – Maria Sharapova and her shadow edited from en:File:Sharapova Roland Garros 2009 3.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maria\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0was a transcendent star in tennis from the time she was a teenager, someone whose grit and groundstrokes earned her a career Grand Slam and whose off-court success included millions of dollars more in endorsement deals than prize money.<\/p>\n

And yet,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0walked away from her sport rather quietly Wednesday at the age of 32, ending a career that featured five major championships, time at No. 1 in the WTA rankings, a 15-month doping ban and plenty of problems with her right shoulder.<\/p>\n

There was no goodbye tournament, no last moment in the spotlight, for someone so used to garnering so much attention for so long, with or without a racket in hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve been pretty good in the past, balancing my time with my sponsors with my tennis, because I know my priority. At the end of the day, what I love doing is competing, and that’s where my heart is at: on centre court,\u201d\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0said in a 2006 interview with The Associated Press right before that year’s U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a couple of sides of me,\u201d she said then. \u201cThere’s the Maria that’s a tennis player. There’s the Maria that is a normal girl. And there’s the Maria who’s a businesswoman. And that’s where the ‘Maria\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0brand’ comes into play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around that time, she signed a \u201clifetime\u201d contract with a racket company, a deal that eventually was ended. And two weeks after that, she would win the U.S. Open trophy while wearing an outfit that resembled a sparkly black cocktail dress, part of the \u201ccouple of sides\u201d persona she cultivated.<\/p>\n

Two years later, though,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0missed the tournament at Flushing Meadows because she needed surgery on her shoulder, which has troubled her off and on ever since; she had another operation on that joint in 2019.<\/p>\n

She lost the last four matches she played at major tournaments, with first-round exits in her past three appearances, including at the Australian Open in January. That turned out to be the last match of her career and made her 0-2 this season.<\/p>\n

In an essay written for Vanity Fair and Vogue about her decision to retire, posted online Wednesday,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0asks: \u201cHow do you leave behind the only life you’ve ever known?\u201d<\/p>\n

She disclosed that she \u201chad a procedure to numb my shoulder to get through the match\u201d a half-hour before walking on court for a first-round exit at last year’s U.S. Open, writing: \u201cI share this not to garner pity, but to paint my new reality: My body had become a distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Russia, and \u201cdiscovered\u201d by Martina Navratilova at an exhibition event in Moscow,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0moved to Florida as a child and trained at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll miss her, baby. She’s very special,\u201d Bollettieri told the AP in an interview last year, when\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0returned to his academy as she worked her way back from her latest shoulder procedure. \u201cThe tour will miss her. … Always competitive. All business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharapova\u00a0burst onto the tennis scene at 17 by upsetting Serena Williams to win Wimbledon in 2004. She would beat Williams again at that year’s season-ending tour championship to improve to 2-1 against the American \u2014 and never won another one of their matchups, dropping the next 19 in a row.<\/p>\n

Powerful at the baseline, and famous for a never-give-up attitude,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0reached No. 1 for the first time at 18 in 2005. After adding her second major trophy at the U.S. Open the following year, she collected an Australian Open title in 2008, and then won the French Open in 2012 and 2014.<\/p>\n

Sharapova\u00a0is one of only six women in the professional era to win each major tennis title at least once. She made 10 Grand Slam finals in all, going 5-5; the last came in 2015 at the Australian Open, where she was the runner-up to Williams.<\/p>\n

At the 2016 Australian Open, where Williams beat her in the quarterfinals,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0tested positive for the newly banned drug meldonium.<\/p>\n

After initially being given a two-year suspension,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which reduced the penalty, ruling she bore \u201cless than significant fault\u201d in the case and could not \u201cbe considered to be an intentional doper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since returning from that suspension in 2017,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0managed to reach only one Slam quarterfinal.<\/p>\n

Her 6-3, 6-4 loss to Donna Vekic at Melbourne last month sent\u00a0Sharapova’s ranking tumbling outside of the top 350 \u2014 she is 373rd this week.<\/p>\n

Asked after that defeat whether it might have been her last appearance at the Australian Open,\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0repeatedly replied with, \u201cI don’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI put in all the right work. There is no guarantee that even when you do all of those things, that you’re guaranteed victory in a first round or in the third round or in the final. That’s the name of this game,\u201d\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0said after what turned out to be her final match. \u201cThat’s why it’s so special to be a champion, even for one time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A little more than a month later, she told the world she was done with her playing career.<\/p>\n

\u201cTennis showed me the world \u2014 and it showed me what I was made of. It’s how I tested myself and how I measured my growth,\u201d\u00a0Sharapova\u00a0wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. \u201cAnd so in whatever I might choose for my next chapter, my next mountain, I’ll still be pushing. I’ll still be climbing. I’ll still be growing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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