It is an ironclad fact that not
all people could stay in a career forever, be it in business or in the more
active world of sports. Particularly for athletes, the advancing of age will
eventually wear down on their physical condition until they would have to
retire. The question then is when the right time to retire from a sport would
be. For some sportsmen, they tend not to wait long, like the late Kobe Bryant
who left the NBA in his late 30s. Another great from another sport seems to
agree with retiring at that decade: Maria Sharapova.
CBS Sports has it that the American-based Russian tennis superstar
Maria Sharapova has decided to retire from professional tennis at the age of 32.
She made this surprise announcement on Wednesday, February 26, or just about 25
days after the end of the 2020 Australian Open, the last Grand Slam tennis
tournament she would participate in before revealing her decision. Sharapova
would contribute an essay to Vanity Fair
detailing her intent to retire and embark on the next chapter of her life, to “scale
another mountain” in her own words.
“Tennis – I'm saying goodbye,”
Sharapova’s essay bluntly says. She described how playing the sport ever since
she was only four gave her a life, which saw her becoming a strong contender
against the likes of Serena Williams, whom she beat at age 17 in 2004 at
Wimbledon. The following year she would become ranked number 1 according to the
World Tennis Association (WTA), staying at the top for 21 weeks. Added to that achievement
are her five career Grand Slam titles, one each from Wimbledon, US and
Australian Opens, plus two at the French Open. But what might have driven
Sharapova in her decision to leave pro tennis at 32?
There are several factors.
Physical-wise Maraia Sharapova’s playing has left her with some wear and tear
in her right shoulder, which forced her to undergo surgery several times with
the latest only last year. Then too, she was banned for failing a drug test
during the 2016 Australian Open, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Unfortunately the pro tennis community was mostly unsympathetic when Sharapova
gave a defense for her US-banned medication. The fact that it also cost her
several product endorsements would have left Sharapova with some bitterness.
Finally, her first-round elimination in the recent Australian Open must have
felt like the final straw.
But in her retirement essay
Sharapova showed great poise and made little mention of her many career disappointments.
"Tennis showed me the world — and it showed me what I was made of,” she
says. “It's how I tested myself and how I measured my growth."
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