Five-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova announces her retirement from tennis in an emotional essay in Vanity Fair – three years after coming back from a drugs ban
- Maria Sharapova has confirmed that she will retire from tennis at the age of 32
- The five-time Grand Slam winner penned an emotional essay in Vanity Fair
- In it, Sharapova reveals her ‘body has become a distraction’ due to her injuries
- The decision to retire comes three years after her return following a drugs ban
Maria Sharapova has given up the uneven struggle against injury and announced she has finished with tennis at the age of 32 in an emotional open letter in Vanity Fair.
After a career that yielded five Grand Slam titles, hundreds of millions of earnings and a reputation that became severely tarnished, she revealed her retirement through the pages of the magazine.
She will be remembered for her major wins, her relentless baseline hitting delivered with a piercing shriek and the failing a drugs test at the 2016 Australian Open.
Maria Sharapova announced her retirement from tennis at the age of 32 on Wednesday
Five-time Grand Slam winner Sharapova celebrates winning Wimbledon back in 2004 aged 17
The 32-year-old revealed her ‘body has become a distraction’ with injuries hindering her game
The 32-year-old Russian said: ‘I’m new to this, so please forgive me. Tennis —I’m saying goodbye.’
‘I share this not to garner pity, but to paint my new reality: My body had become a distraction.
‘Throughout my career, Is it worth it? was never even a question — in the end, it always was.’
The Russian drops to her knees after clinching her first ever Grand Slam title at Wimbledon
She burst to prominence by winning the 2004 Wimbledon final as a 17-year-old against Serena Williams, who was to become a bitter rival, even though the American ended up with a crushingly superior head-to-head record in their encounters.
The Russian, who was taken by her father to Florida as a child to hone her tennis game, made the most of her ability and even turned herself into a French Open champion, despite being no natural on the clay courts.
Happy to admit that she saw her peers as competitors rather than friends, she became known for her aloof attitude in the locker room.
There was little sympathy from fellow players, therefore, when she tested positive for newly-outlawed Meldonium after making the quarter finals in Melbourne four years ago.
She was to serve a 15-month ban and the record will show that she was never the same player without the assistance of the banned substance, failing to make the top 20 after her return in April 2017.
Sharapova speaks out at a press conference after testing positive for meldonium in 2016
Repeat shoulder issues, a long-standing problem, were among the injuries that plagued her and with a plummeting ranking she has decided to call it a day.
Her last appearance at a Grand Slam saw her exit in the first round of the Australian Open, losing to Donna Vekic, and that ensured her ranking dropped to 373 in the world.
And for the former world No 1, her persistent shoulder injuries, and struggles to go deep into major tournaments, has pushed her to call time on her tennis career.