Goodbye, tennis
\nFive-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova, one of the world\u2019s most recognisable and highest-paid sportswomen, on Wednesday announced her retirement at the age of 32.
\n\u201cTennis \u2014 I\u2019m saying goodbye,\u201d Sharapova said in an article for Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines.
\n\u201cAfter 28 years and five Grand Slam titles, though, I\u2019m ready to scale another mountain \u2014 to compete on a different type of terrain.\u201d
\nSharapova burst onto the scene as a supremely gifted teenager and won her Grand Slams before serving a 15-month ban for failing a drugs test at the 2016 Australian Open.
\nThe Russian former world number one\u2019s ranking is currently 373rd.
\nSharapova has hardly played in the past year because of long-standing shoulder problems.
\nWhen she did feature she lost as many matches as she won and was dumped out in the first rounds at Wimbledon, the US Open and, most recently, the Australian Open in Melbourne. Siberia-born Sharapova first picked up a racquet at the age of four in Sochi, where her Belarus-born parents had settled after escaping the deadly clutches of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
\nShe shot to fame as a giggly 17-year-old Wimbledon winner in 2004, the third-youngest player to conquer the All England Club\u2019s hallowed grass courts.
\n\u2018Tennis gave me life\u2019
\nShe became world number one in 2005, at the age of 18, and won the US Open the next year.
\n\u201cOne of the keys to my success was that I never looked back and I never looked forward,\u201d Sharapova said on Wednesday.
\n\u201cI believed that if I kept grinding and grinding, I could push myself to an incredible place.\u201d
\nBut in 2007 Sharapova began her long on-off battle with shoulder trouble.
\nShe would win the 2008 Australian Open before a second shoulder injury kept her off tour for the second half of the season, missing the US Open and Beijing Olympics.
\nIn 2012, the Siberian-born Sharapova captured the French Open to become the 10th woman to complete a career Grand Slam. She added Olympic silver to her resume that year.
\nHer 2014 French Open title was another high after a dispiriting injury low.
\nMore fitness troubles followed before the bombshell announcement of her positive test for the banned heart drug meldonium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Goodbye, tennis Five-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova, one of the world\u2019s most recognisable and highest-paid sportswomen, on Wednesday announced her retirement at the age of 32. \u201cTennis \u2014 I\u2019m saying goodbye,\u201d Sharapova said in an article for Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines. \u201cAfter 28 years and five Grand Slam titles, though, I\u2019m ready to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n