Paris: When Maria Sharapova last played the French Open in 2015, she did so as defending champion. Denied a wildcard by Roland Garros organisers last year on her return from a 15-month doping ban, the Russian was dogged by injury and controversy as she tried to get her career back on track.
Now 31, it would have been understandable had the five-time Grand Slam winner hung up her rackets to focus on her ever expanding business empire. Not Sharapova though, one of the game’s toughest competitors.
“That’s why I still continue to do this (playing tennis), because I have that passion of figuring things out and getting it done, whether it’s a tough day, or whether it’s a great day,” Sharapova told this agency in a phone interview, recently.
Although Sharapova was the world’s top-paid female athlete for more than a decade and has earned close to $300 million on and off the court according to ‘Forbes’, nothing comes close to competing for the sport’s biggest prizes.
“You are very much in the moment,” said Sharapova, a three-time finalist at the Roland Garros. “Your team just hands you over, literally on to the stage, onto your universe for the next hour, hour-and-a-half, two or three, and you have to find a way to deliver. You have to be powerful, but yet you have to handle being vulnerable at moments when things don’t go your way,” added the Russian beauty queen.
Having ended 2017 outside the top 50 in rankings, Sharapova endured one of the worst periods of her career as she lost four straight matches.
Now, after strong performances in Madrid and Rome this month, Sharapova is back among the seeds and beginning to believe that she can win the title for a third time.
Finally fully fit, Sharapova reached the quarterfinals in Madrid and beat reigning French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko to reach the semifinals in Rome where she lost to Simona Halep. She called her progress ‘a step in the right direction’.
“What I’m most proud of is (that) I had a lot of opportunities in the last few weeks in Madrid and Rome to just back down, to let little things bother me. But I got through them. Most importantly, I had a lot of court time and match play,” asserted Sharapova.
On court, you have to be powerful, but you will also face some vulnerable moments. the trick is to get past those
Maria Sharapova
