Tennis
FIVE-TIME GRAND SLAM WINNER MARIA SHARAPOVA RETIRES
One of the greatest women tennis players, Maria Sharapova has retired. According to the Daily Mail in UK, the Russian 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 failing a drugs test at the 2016 Australian Open.
The 32-year-old Russian 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 that you love — one which brought you untold tears and unspeakable joys—a sport where you found a family, along 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.
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.’
On Instagram, accompanying a photo of her as a young child on the tennis court, she added: ‘Tennis showed me the world — and it showed me what I was made of.
MARIA SHARAPOVA CAREER CV
Career high ranking: No 1
Current ranking: No 373
Career prize money: £30million
Total wins: 645
Total defeats: 171
Total number of titles: 36
Grand Slam titles: Wimbledon (2004), US Open (2006), Australian Open (2008), French Open (2012, 2014)
‘It’s how I tested myself and how I measured my growth.’
‘And 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.’
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 was taken by her father to Florida as a child to hone her tennis game with the family having just $700 (£540) in hand.
Nick Bollettieri was the man who created the idea of a tennis boarding school and he played a key role in Sharapova’s development into a future Grand Slam champion.
Andre Agassi, Venus and Serena Williams and Martina Hingis all worked under Bollettieri to develop their game.
The move to the United States was to make the most of her ability and the facilities in Florida even turned her 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 has been a prominent figure off the court as well as on it, enjoying high-profile relationships.
She dated Marron 5 singer Adam Levine in 2005 before later dating former Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Sasha Vujacic.
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.
She admitted that her 6-1, 6-1 humbling to Serena Williams at the 2019 US Open was the ‘final signal’ it was time to retire.
‘Behind closed doors, 30 minutes before taking the court, I had a procedure to numb my shoulder to get through the match,’ she added.
‘Shoulder injuries are nothing new for me – over time my tendons have frayed like a string. I’ve had multiple surgeries – once in 2008, another procedure last year – and spent countless months in physical therapy.
‘Just stepping on to the court that day felt like a final victory, when of course it should have been merely the first step toward victory.’
In a retirement interview with the New York Times, Sharapova revealed that she was due to meet Kobe Bryant, who had become a sounding board for her while she accepted her injuries, before he tragically died in a helicopter crash on January 26.
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.
She has played only twice in 2020, including that loss to Vekic in Melbourne. 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.
Her boyfriend Alexander Gilkes paid tribute to the bravery of Sharapova in making the decision to retire.
On his Instagram page, Gilkes wrote: ‘To the kindest and most professional person I know, here is to you Maria, and all that awaits you in your next chapter! May you continue to inspire us all with your deep humility, self-depreciation, strength and focus.
‘As a remarkable first chapter closes with so many extraordinary fetes, we look forward to all that you will accomplish with equal grit in the years to come. Proudly and lovingly.’
Part of Sharapova’s focus will now turn to business and managing her successful confectionery company, Sugarpova. The company was set up in 2012 and has become hugely successful.
Her fragrance company ‘Maria Sharapova Beauty & Power’ is another lucrative area of her growing business portfolio. In 2018, Forbes estimated that Sharapova’s business empire was worth $195m (£151m).
The Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) has filed a lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies, accusing them of anti-competitive practices and a disregard for player welfare.
The PTPA, an independent players’ union co-founded by Novak Djokovic in 2019, said on March 18 that after years of good-faith efforts to reform professional tennis, it had been forced to take legal action to end “monopolistic control” of the sport.
In a statement, it said that along with more than a dozen players, the PTPA had filed papers in a New York court against the ATP Tour, the WTA Tour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
“Tennis is broken,” said Ahmad Nassar, executive director of the PTPA.
“Behind the glamorous veneer that the defendants promote, players are trapped in an unfair system that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardises their health and safety.
“We have exhausted all options for reform through dialogue, and the governing bodies have left us no choice but to seek accountability through the courts. Fixing these systemic failures isn’t about disrupting tennis, it’s about saving it for the generations of players and fans to come.”
In response, the ATP accused the PTPA of choosing “division and distraction” and having no meaningful role in the sport.
“We strongly reject the premise of the PTPA’s claims, believe the case to be entirely without merit, and will vigorously defend our position,” it said in a statement.
“ATP remains committed to working in the best interests of the game – towards continued growth, financial stability, and the best possible future for players, tournaments, and fans.”
The WTA defended its record of growing women’s tennis, describing the lawsuit as “baseless”.
“Every decision taken at the WTA Board level includes the input of players via their elected Board representatives, and athletes receive substantial financial rewards and other benefits from participation in the WTA,” the organisation said.
The ITF, meanwhile, stressed its goal is to ensure the growth of tennis as a global sport.
“As a not-for-profit organisation and global guardian of the game… we reinvest 90 per cent of our income into the global development of the game, via our 213 member National Associations,” an ITF spokesperson said.
Describing the various governing bodies as a “cartel”, the PTPA, which has also begun legal action in Britain and the EU, accuses them of paying “artificially low compensation to professional tennis players” and imposing a “draconian” ranking system that forces them to compete in certain tournaments.
The lawsuit also calls the schedule unsustainable, says players are made to play in extreme heat and often in the early hours of the morning, that tennis balls chosen by the tournaments are a factor in chronic injuries and that players’ privacy rights are being abused by random drug tests.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, the PTPA said it met with more than 250 players across the tours, including the majority of the men’s and women’s top 20.
“The overwhelmingly positive player feedback was a resounding confirmation – change is needed now, and players are united in their fight for reform,” the statement added.
Serbia’s 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic has been a fierce advocate for change to the organisation of tennis, insisting that the revenues generated by the sport are not fairly shared out to players.
“Women and men who are around 200 and lower ranked in the world, they are struggling a lot,” he said in a CBS 60 Minutes interview in 2023.
“They can’t afford a coach, they can’t afford travels, they skip tournaments, many of them leave tennis who are super talented and maybe capable of reaching great heights.”
The ITIA, which manages the sport’s anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, responded to the lawsuit by saying: “Any credible international sport requires robust anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, and we are proud of our role in contributing to a clean and fair sport.”
-Reuters
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Jannik Sinner has accepted a three-month ban from tennis after the world No. 1 admitted team mistakes led to him twice testing positive for traces of banned substance clostebol in March 2024.
The February 9 to May 4 suspension means Sinner will be free to play in the French Open, the second grand slam of the season, which begins on May 25 at Roland Garros.
In a statement, Sinner said that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted that he “had no intent and did not derive any competitive advantage from the two positive tests”.
Australian Open champion Sinner has always said that clostebol entered his system when his physiotherapist used a spray containing it to treat a cut, then provided massage and sports therapy.
“This case had been hanging over me now for nearly a year and the process still had a long time to run with a decision maybe only at the end of the year,” Sinner said.
“I have always accepted that I am responsible for my team and realise Wada’s strict rules are an important protection for the sport I love. On that basis I have accepted Wada’s offer to resolve these proceedings on the basis of a three-month sanction.”
Wada said separately that “Sinner did not intend to cheat” but that he would serve his suspension as he is responsible for the actions of his entourage.
The agreement between Sinner and Wada means that Sinner will be able to play in front of his home fans at the Rome Open which kicks off just after the end of his suspension and is the last big clay court tournament before Roland Garros.
-AFP
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Naomi Osaka has parted ways with coach Wim Fissette after four years together across two stints, the 26-year-old announced late on Friday.
The former world number one won two of her four Grand Slam titles under the guidance of the Belgian, but is currently 75th in the rankings having returned to the tour nine months ago after a lengthy maternity break.
“Four years, two slams and a whole lot of memories,” Osaka wrote in an Instagram post.
“Thanks Wim for being a great coach and an even greater person. Wishing you all the best.”
Of the 16 tournaments Osaka has played this season, she has made the quarter-finals in only two – Doha and ‘s-Hertogenbosch – and the Japanese player has also failed to go past the second round in each of the four Grand Slams
-Reuters
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