“Just last week, Sharapova skied for the first time in her life, conquering a slope in Montana, and then sent the video to Jannik Sinner – the 18-year-old up-and-coming tennis player and former skier. The boy who once conquered many races in the Alps was her training partner.

” He answered me, and said that I want you to continue playing tennis, ” Sharapova said, laughing loudly”, those are the concluding sentences for the article ” Maria Sharapova wants to make it clear to everyone that: She retired, not gave up ” by author Christopher Clarey in the New York Times, published February 26, 2020.

For those who deeply understand this girl filled with contradictions, this is a valuable ending. Because not everyone knows that for Maria Sharapova, there is something even more terrible than the penalty she received for doping, which kept her away from her top playing career for up to 15 months. That’s everyone’s hate.

” No one likes her ” – that’s what many of this Russian tennis player’s female colleagues said when asked about Maria Sharapova, most recently French tennis player Kristina Mladenovic.

Are her French colleagues jealous of Maria Sharapova’s title “Queen of Tennis”, or her income that absolutely dominates the female athlete community, and are willing to “rub salt in the wound” of her colleagues? his career after being punished for doping? No, Kristina Mladenovic simply told the truth – a truth that the entire women’s tennis world knows.

Simply, that is the price to climb to the top of “Tennis Queen”. But days of only practicing and practicing, the desire to only be number 1 has made Maria Sharapova insensitive to her fellow human beings, apathetic in her relationships with colleagues, as well as those around her. There is a very different Maria Sharapova than what is seen in the bright lights. Behind the halo, there is tragedy.

Also because of that “cold as ice” mentality, when she was involved in a “doping scandal”, with the drug Meldonium that she used for 10 years, but was considered a “global epidemic” of doping. ” causing the Russian sports team to be “quarantined” with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the whole world turned its back on Maria Sharapova.

More than 125 million USD – the calculated number that was taken away from her along with the doping case, is certainly a large number, even very large, but it is not as large as the “attack” that the whole sports world struck her on the day of her accident. Only then did the Russian girl fully understand the price she had to pay on her way to the top of glory.

And that motivated her to return at all costs. Not only is it a return to a top tennis career, to prove one’s innocence, but also a return to the human world, with the gradual rebuilding of emotional and social relationships. to be able to live the rest of my life as a normal person, with joy, anger, sadness, and love still overflowing somewhere, even though life and career out there are full of hustle and bustle.

That return is much more difficult than one might think, just as Maria Sharapova imagined. A persistent elbow injury means she can no longer play powerful forehands, nor can she play at the net, instead focusing all on her backhand. While recovering her career, Maria Sharapova also learned how to “get acquainted” with people and create new relationships.

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On the day of separation, Maria Sharapova dropped to 373rd in the world, but that was not the reason she retired. She said that Kobe Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash on January 26 was the turning point that made her decide.

Right before the decision to “retire”, Maria Sharapova flew from Australia to Los Angeles. On that flight, the 32-year-old girl realized how impermanent life was, and how meaningless all the glory and money she had earned would be if one day she had to “lie down”. It’s time for her to find her lost life again after more than a quarter of a “lost” century. She said goodbye to tennis, to return to her own life.

” There are a few simple things that I’m really excited about after retirement: the feeling of peace with my family. Sipping a cup of coffee in the morning. Unscheduled weekend outings. And the upcoming training classes (Hello, dance class) “, Maria Sharapova wrote in her tennis farewell.

” Tennis once allowed me to see the world. It was the way I challenged myself and valued myself. Therefore, the next chapter of my life is still mountains. I will still climb up, will still move forward endlessly “, that mountain, that road ahead will be empty of tennis, but will be full of human love, and there will be a lot less tears that wet the pillow every night.. .