Maria Sharapova, five-time grand slam winner, has announced her retirement from tennis at the age of 32.
The Russian disclosed this in an emotional retirement letter to Vogue and Vanity Fair on Wednesday.
โHow do you leave behind the only life youโve ever known?
โHow do you walk away from the courts youโve trained on since you were a little girl, the game that you loveโone which brought you untold tears and unspeakable joysโa sport where you found a family, along with fans who rallied behind you for more than 28 years?
โIโm new to this, so please forgive me. Tennis โ Iโm saying goodbye.โ
โTennis showed me the world โ and it showed me what I was made of. Itโs how I tested myself and how I measured my growth.
โAnd so in whatever I might choose for my next chapter, my next mountain, Iโll still be pushing. Iโll still be climbing. Iโll still be growing.โ,ย Sharapova said.
The former world No 1 burst into the tennis scene with her Wimbledon victory at the age of 17, after which she won the US Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. The other major victories both came at the French Open in 2012 and 2014.
She continued: โWimbledon seemed like a good place to start. I was a naive 17-year-old, still collecting stamps, and didnโt understand the magnitude of my victory until I was olderโand Iโm glad I didnโt.
โMy edge, though, was never about feeling superior to other players. It was about feeling like I was on the verge of falling off a cliffโwhich is why I constantly returned to the court to figure out how to keep climbing.
โThe U.S. Open showed me how to overcome distractions and expectations. If you couldnโt handle the commotion of New Yorkโwell, the airport was almost next-door. Dosvidanya.
โThe Australian Open took me to a place that had never been a part of me beforeโto an extreme confidence that some people call being โin the zone.โ I really canโt explain itโbut it was a good place to be.
โThe clay at the French Open exposed virtually all my weaknessesโfor starters, my inability to slide on itโand forced me to overcome them. Twice. That felt good.
โThese courts revealed my true essence.โ
She had won only three matches since reaching the fourth round of the 2019 Australian Open and was knocked out in the first round at this yearโs tournament in Melbourne by Donna Vekic.
In 2016, Sharapova tested positive for the drug meldonium and was banned for two years.
