IT’S ALL SHARAP-OVER!
After a €300m career, five Grand Slams and a doping ban – Maria, 32, says: I quit
SHE’S one of the most glamorous women in tennis – as comfortable on the cover of glossy magazines as she is on the court.
So yesterday it seemed fitting that Maria Sharapova, 32, should announce her retirement through Vanity Fair and Vogue.
The news follows a torrid few years for the five-time Grand Slam champion, who had slumped to 373rd place in world player rankings.
She has struggled with a chronic shoulder condition that has hampered her return to the game after a 15-month doping ban in 2016 for using the cardiac drug meldonium.
But yesterday the self-made Russian millionaire – whose career earnings are estimated at €298million – announced it was game over.
In an essay and video for Vanity Fair and Vogue online, she said: ‘How do you leave behind the only life you’ve ever known?
‘How do you walk away from the courts you’ve trained on since you were a little girl, the game you love, which brought you untold tears and unspeakable joys, a sport where you found a family, with fans who rallied behind you for more than 28 years?
‘I’m new to this, so please forgive me. Tennis – I’m saying goodbye.’
Ms Sharapova dazzled the international tennis world in 2004 when, aged 17, she beat Serena Williams for the Wimbledon women’s singles title. She went on to add four more Grand Slams but yesterday said she was ‘ready to scale another mountain’.
Ms Sharapova, who is dating British businessman Alexander Gilkes, was the highest-paid female athlete in the world for 11 years before being usurped by Williams in 2017, according to Forbes magazine.
She teamed up with brands including Tag Heuer, Canon, Sony and Nike for endorsement deals and also has a sweets firm called Sugarpova. She became a hit off court as quickly as she did on it, gracing the covers of Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Health and Esquire, as well as modelling for Vogue and Sports Illustrated.