Sharapova retires at age 32
Maria Sharapova is retiring from professional tennis at the age of 32 after five Grand Slam titles and time ranked No. 1.
She has been dealing with shoulder problems for years.
Sharapova played only two matches this season and lost both.
In an essay written for Vanity Fair and Vogue about her decision to walk away from the sport, posted online Wednesday, Sharapova asks: “How do you leave behind the only life you’ve ever known?”
She burst onto the tennis scene at 17 when she won Wimbledon in 2004 and would go on to complete a career Grand Slam with two titles at the French Open and one each at the U.S. Open and Australian Open.
The Russian, who moved to Florida as a child, served a 15-month ban after failing a doping test in 2016.
Olympics
TOKYO ORGANIZERS, GOVERNMENT TAKE OFFENSIVE >> Tokyo Olympic organizers and the Japanese government went on the offensive after a senior IOC member said the 2020 Games were being threatened by the spread of a viral
outbreak, with their fate probably decided in the next three months.
Tokyo organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto abruptly called a news conference to address comments from former International Olympic Committee vice president Dick Pound in an interview with The Associated Press.
“Our basic thoughts are that we will go ahead with the Olympic and Paralympic Games as scheduled,” Muto said, speaking in Japanese. “For the time being, the situation of the coronavirus infection is, admittedly,
difficult to predict, but we will take measures such that we’ll have a safe Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
The viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700 globally.
Pro football
NFL, PLAYERS MOVE CLOSER TO NEW CBA >> The NFL and its players have moved closer to a new collective bargaining agreement and the next decade of labor peace that would come with it. If the process is at first-and-goal now, though,
there’s still work to be done to get into the end zone.
With a late-night vote, on the slim majority approval of the 32 team representatives, the NFL Players Association was preparing to send the current CBA proposal to the full union membership for potential ratification.
Last week, the owners flashed their thumbs up with a majority-vote approval of the agreement that’s a product of 10 months of negotiations with a 17-game regular season the most significant change.