 | |  |  | Maria Sharapova News & Gossip
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| | Maria Sharapova & Alexander Gilkes are engaged after dating since 2018 | | Added 3 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Maria Sharapova retired from tennis early this year, just after she lost first round at the Australian Open. She had been a shadow of her former self ever since she returned to the tour in 2017, following her suspension for doping. I still think about the audacity she had, to lie so coldly with a doping cover story that still makes zero sense. Anyway, Maria returned to the tour in 2017 and in the two and a half years that followed, she was beset with a laundry list of injuries. She was constantly pulling out of tournaments after taking wild cards, and she was constantly losing in the first or second round whenever she did play. While Maria still had her defenders (coughChrisEvertcough), the jig was up. The only reason Dopapova won before 2016 was because of the performance-enhancing drugs.
Anyway, the doping, lies and injuries were not the only thing to happen to Maria during this recent timeline. In 2018, she met Alexander Gilkes, a posh British dude who went to Eton with Prince William. Gilkes and Prince William are still friendly and travel in the same circles. Gilkes was also married to Misha Nonoo for 13 years they divorced in 2016 (and Misha remarried in 2018, in a wedding attended by Ivanka Trump and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex). Anyway, Gilkes and Maria seemed quite loved-up. And now they?re engaged, as you can see from her Instagram.
Does anyone have any idea what ?This was our little secret, wasn?t it? means? I take it that they?ve been secretly engaged for a while and they?re only announcing it now? But? who was checking for it? Like, was it a secret or did no one care? Hell, maybe it?s a reference to a pregnancy, God knows.
Alexander works for Paddle 8, the online art auction house which used to employ Princess Beatrice. I think Maria lives in London with Alexander now, or at least she seems to have been locked down in London this year with him. Will they split their time between London and her institutional-looking LA home?
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Maria Sharapova (@mariasharapova)
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| | Maria Sharapova is retiring from tennis to spend more time with her meldonium | | Added 4 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Tennis is super-weird at the moment. Roger Federer shocked everyone last week when he suddenly announced that he had undergone knee surgery, and that he would be out until the grass season (late June). Andy Murray just confirmed that he?s still facing tons of medical issues due to his bad hip, even though he underwent hip resurfacing surgery last year. Murray may need another surgery and he might be out for months longer. My fave Juan Martin del Potro also had yet another knee surgery several weeks ago and God knows when he?ll be back. Add to all of that, I swear to God, Serena Williams is playing worse right now than she was in her first year back from maternity leave. It?s a struggle when all of my faves are broken. What?s NOT a struggle? When a doper retires after her body can?t handle the tour drug-free. Maria Sharapova is retiring.
Maria Sharapova, the tennis star who became one of the richest and most famous athletes of the 21st century, is retiring at age 32, worn down by injuries that hindered her as she tried to return to the top of the sport following a suspension for using a banned substance.
Sharapova, a tall and intense Russian who punctuated her flat groundstrokes with piercing shrieks, won five Grand Slam singles titles, starting with Wimbledon at age 17 in 2004, when she beat the No. 1 seed Serena Williams in a hard-hitting final. Yet Sharapova made an arguably more indelible mark off the court as the highest-earning women?s athlete for 11 straight years, according to Forbes. With endorsements from companies like Nike and Evian, she reportedly earned close to $30 million in 2015 before her suspension in 2016 knocked her down the game?s pecking order.
She was punished for using meldonium, a drug developed for heart patients that is said to improve blood flow and help athletes recover faster. Sharapova said she had been taking it for 10 years because of a magnesium deficiency, dizziness and a family history of diabetes. But she claimed to be unaware that the drug had recently been added to the World Anti-Doping Agency?s list of banned substances. Her suspension was cut from two years to 15 months on appeal, with an arbitration panel declaring that ?under no circumstances? should she be considered ?an intentional doper.?
She met resistance after returning to the tour in April 2017, with some tournament officials choosing not to offer her invitations to play, and some players expressing discontent when she was granted wild cards, arguing that it was unfair for a player returning from a ban to receive such a boost.
[From The NY Times]
Maria barely played last year she kept getting wild cards into big tournaments, and then she would end up cancelling. She?s had a few surgeries in the past few years, since her big return from suspension too. Her body really couldn?t handle the tour, honestly. And very few tennis commentators wanted to say it either it was shocking at the US Open last year, when Maria lost to Serena Williams in the first round (their first time playing in New York), and then Patrick McEnroe went off about how Maria came back to the tour to prove that she could still be a champion post-doping, and she hasn?t proved it at all. If anything, she?s proved that the meldonium WAS performance-enhancing. Anyway, I can?t say Maria will be missed, but I will say this: Serena needs more players she can see as rivals. One of Serena?s problems is that she adores all of the younger girls. She was filled with a fiery contempt for Maria and it fueled her to win, win, win. So on that count, I?ll miss Maria a little bit.
Christopher Clarey at the NYT also says that Maria won?t be doing a ?farewell tour,? meaning she?s not looking to play all of her favorite tournaments one last time. So? is it over? She?s not even going to lose one last match at Indian Wells or whatever?
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red.
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| | IOC bans Russia from competing in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics | | Added 6 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Note: I?m choosing to use Maria Sharapova?s photos in this post for many reasons. One, she?s Russian. Two, she already served a suspension from professional tennis for doping. Three, because I?m an idiot about most athletes, when I thought of ?Russian athlete,? Sharapova was the first one to come to mind. Plus, she?s actually an Olympic medalist: she won Silver at the London Olympics in 2012.
Sharapova will not be playing at the Pyeongchang, South Korea Olympics in a few months because tennis is a Summer Olympics-sport (the 2018 Olympics are for Winter sports) and because Russia got their asses BANNED from the 2018 Olympics. Guess why? You?ll never guess! Oh, right, the state-sponsored sport programs in Russia are basically doping factories.
The International Olympic Committee has barred Russia from the Winter Olympics this February as punishment for its systematic doping but will allow some individual Russian athletes to take part under a neutral Olympic flag.
The IOC’s executive committee announced in a statement that it was barring Russia’s national Olympic committee from the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The punishment, which will mean that no Russian athletes will compete under the country’s colors, came amid intense pressure to punish the country for its alleged state-sponsored cover-up of doping by its athletes. The penalty is unprecedented in Olympic history.
In a statement released after it met in Lausanne, Switzerland, the committee said it acted on the recommendations of an IOC commission headed by former Swiss President Samuel Schmid to investigate Russian doping. The statement said his report confirmed “the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia.”
At a press conference after the decision was announced, Schmid said his commission did not find any evidence that the Kremlin was aware of the doping cover-up, but the IOC banned Russia’s former sports minister and its current head of the national soccer association, Vitaly Mutko, for life from the Olympics, along with his former deputy Yuri Nagornykh.
The anti-doping agencies of 17 countries, including the United States, demanded the IOC impose a blanket ban, issuing a collective statement in September that it was time for the body to stop “paying lip service” to the anti-doping fight.
The IOC stopped short of that, instead saying that some Russian athletes will be permitted to compete in Pyeongchang under a specially created status, “Olympic athlete from Russia,” according to the IOC statement. Those athletes will have to be cleared an IOC panel that will confirm they have no doping violations on their records and that they have undergone sufficient testing. Athletes approved by the panel will compete in a uniform with “Olympic athlete from Russia” written on it and under an Olympic flag. The Olympic anthem will be played in place of Russia’s national anthem at medal ceremonies.
[From ABC News]
I?m sure there will be a lot of people (Russian bots?) arguing that doping is a way of life in professional sport and blah blah blah AMERICANS DO IT TOO and this is all some kind of anti-Russian conspiracy. While I believe that *some* athletes from *many* nations dope or have doped in the past, the sheer volume of Russian athletes doping is next-level. There?s been an excellent series of reporting around Russian doping for years, and many people forget that there were actually calls for Russia to be banned from the Rio Olympics too. And do you remember the Russian-organized hack of American Olympians following the Rio Olympics? That was like a harbinger of Russian shenanigans to come.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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| | Maria Sharapova thinks her haters are peddling fake news about meldonium | | Added 6 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Here are some photos of Maria Sharapova at a promotional event for her book this week in New York. The way she?s posing in these photos is funny to me, especially the one where she?s crouched down as if she’s in a shed, trying to make herself look like a small, wispy white girl who has been forever-dominated by an intimidating and ?thick? black woman. Yeah. Anyway, did you also know that Maria has spent her press tour trying to explain away her doping ban? It?s true. I?ve been meaning to link to this Deadspin story all week, so please read this before we get to Maria?s latest BS. It?s an interesting anecdotal story of an amateur athlete who decided to use meldonium to see if it actually did enhance her performance. Guess what? Meldonium does help. And Maria still couldn?t beat Serena Williams. Some highlights from Maria latest interview with the BBC:
On how Eugenie Bouchard called her a cheater: “I think those are comments not based on facts, and therefore I don’t take them into consideration.”
On Andy Murray?s comments on doping: “I don’t think it’s for them to really have an opinion, because they don’t have the facts. So, you know, I think that those are the types of words that make headlines and they will be used as headlines. But ultimately, this is my career, and I faced it head on, and I admitted my mistake, and I went about it and I served my suspension and now I’m back.”
On meldonium not really being performance-enhancing: “The problem I have with that is there’s no proof of what it does, and no one can give you that proof. What is the ban based on?”
On first watching the Williams sisters: “My father told me, you gotta watch and you gotta study them. And I was like, no, I don’t want them to see me studying them! There was a shed behind the court they were practising on, and I watched them through this little peephole.”
[From BBC]
The reason there?s ?no proof? about meldonium being a PED is because it?s some weird Eastern European drug which hasn?t been fully researched. I would also argue that the ?proof? that it?s a PED is that the ITF banned that sh-t (the proof is the ban). And if there’s no proof of what it does, THEN WHY WAS SHE TAKING IT? And why didn’t she have it on her list of medications which she submits to the ITF every year? As for Maria calling criticism fake news? how very Trumpian of her. How Russian!
Meanwhile, Maria was also on The View this week and she was asked specifically about the dog-whistle racism in her book about Serena being ?tall? and ?thick? and ?intimidating.? When Maria was called out about that, this is how she answered:
?I think you have to understand that I?m speaking from an image of being a 17-year-old girl and seeing Serena Williams in front of me for the first time. I wasn?t physically developed at all, I did not belong at a Wimbledon final, so everything about her presence was intimidating to me. The whole experience of playing Serena as a 17-year-old girl was incredible, because I grew up practicing in an academy in Florida for so many years and I watched Serena and Venus practice at the academy, hundreds of spectators were watching ? literally I was watching the next 25 years of my life right in front of me, unknowingly. And then you find yourself at 17 across the net from her. It was like someone just put me inside a TV screen and said ?here you are, you?ve got a chance to play Serena.? It was our second meeting and the first one, we had just played a few months beforehand, I lost easily, I thought it would take me years to get to her level. She was way above and beyond my level at the time. So playing against her, she was the two-time defending champion, and I speak about that rivalry in the book because that match was a huge part of my life and my career, it?s where it all started for me.?
[Via Sport360]
So, once again, Maria is using Serena to humble-brag and dog-whistle in about twenty different ways. Maria is still painting herself as this tiny little girl who never thought she would ever beat the big black woman and it?s still so amazing to her that she beat Serena because Serena is so thick and so black, right? Ugh.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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| | Maria Sharapova once hid in a shed to watch Serena Williams practice | | Added 6 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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I only just realized that Maria Sharapova?s memoir, Unstoppable, came out on the same day as Hillary Clinton?s memoir, What Happened. Hahahaha. Once again, Sharapova is only the second most interesting [whatever] of any given day. Anyway, there are more excerpts from Sharapova?s book, the juiciest parts of which we?ve already discussed. The biggest headlines thus far have been: A) Sharapova claims that a secondary source told her that Serena Williams called her a ?little bitch? and B) Sharapova casts herself as the poor little defensively white girl to Serena?s ?big, thick, intimidating? black woman. Very Smart Brothas referred to Maria as ?checking every box on the Darth Becky sign-in sheet,? which is a very funny and very true statement. Now, all that being said, I read some additional excerpts and? you guys, I?m actually concerned about Sharapova?s mental health. I think that meldonium did something to her brain or something, because chica comes across as straight-up unhinged. Single White Meldonium: The Maria Sharapova Story.
The first time she saw Venus & Serena in person: Sharapova describes first seeing the Williams sisters in-person at the age of 12, and refusing to be starstruck like the rest of the onlookers. While many gathered to watch Serena and Venus at an open practice session at a Florida tennis academy, Sharapova did not want to give the sisters the satisfaction of seeing her in the stands – even though they would have had no idea who she was at that point. “I’d never put myself in the position of worshiping them, looking up, being a fan,” said Sharapova. Instead, Sharapova?s father found a clandestine spot for her to watch: inside a shed, hidden from view. ?I could watch through a kind of knothold – just me alone, in the dark, seeing the next 20 years of my life,? she writes. ?The image of the Williams sisters would eventually become iconic, and it was in the works even then. They are a force. Tall girls in tennis whites, with bright smiles and piercing, focused eyes.?
She refused to stand for Serena at Wimbledon: Sharapova next encountered Williams three years later at the 2002 Wimbledon Champions ball, when she felt compelled to sit as others stood as the champion made her entrance. ?I wanted to get up, but my body just would not let me,? she writes. ?It was as if I were stuck in that chair, staring at Serena through the crowd of people, with a single thought in my head: ?I am going to get you.??
The first time she played Serena: The two first played each other in Miami in 2004, with Sharapova describing Williams’ strong and “tall, really tall” stature, even though Sharapova is five inches taller than Williams. “It was like yes, finally,” Sharapova said. “It felt as if I’d been circling around her for years.” Sharapova describes playing Serena that first time (Sharapova lost to her): ?I looked around the net and no way to get around it, she was just there! More there than other players, if that makes sense. It?s the whole thing – her presence, her confidence, her personality. She seemed much older than me in Miami. This was just before I turned 17. She was a grown woman, experienced, the best player in the world. It still feels that way. Even now, she can still make me feel like a little girl.?
Maria thinks they should be friends: “Serena and I should be friends: we love the same thing, we have the same passion,” said Sharapova. “Only a few people in the world know what we know ? what it feels like in the dead center of this storm, the fear and anger that drive you, how it is to win and how it is to lose. But we are not friends ? not at all.”
[From The NYT and Rolling Stone]
You know why Maria and Serena are not friends? Because Maria is cray. DID YOU READ THE PART ABOUT THE SHED? Maria didn?t want to, like, watch Venus and Serena?s practice session out in the open. So Maria HID IN A SHED. Maria watched them from a knothole and plotted!! What the ever-loving f–k? The thing is, I?m sure many women and girls have been intimidated by Serena over the years and I?m sure some of those women and girls don?t want to give Serena the satisfaction of showing Serena that she?s broken them. But Maria really takes it next-level, plotting this rivalry when she was 12 years old. She could have just thought ?I hope I get to play her one day? or ?wow, I have a lot to learn before I can beat her.? But she thought ?let me go into a shed and watch Serena practice because I don?t want to give her the satisfaction of ?worshipping? her.? Again, this memoir says less about the Serena-Maria rivalry and more about Maria’s f–ked up attitudes about race, femininity, competition and sportsmanship.
Photos courtesy of WENN and Backgrid.
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| | Maria Sharapova: Serena Williams has 'thick arms & thick legs & is so intimidating' | | Added 6 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Maria Sharapova has a new memoir called Unstoppable, which is still funny to me considering that Serena Williams literally stopped Maria eighteen times in a row. Maria beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2004, and one more time in 2004. Those two times were the only times Maria ever beat Serena. They played each other eighteen times in the twelve years after those 2004 matches, and Serena beat her every time. In those same years, Maria became the highest paid female athlete in the world, despite Serena?s consistent Slam-winning performances, despite Serena?s #1 ranking, despite Serena?s personal narrative as a true underdog, the girl from Compton with the mind of a champion, one half of the greatest sister act in the history of sports.
The Serena-Maria story/comparison is a story of race and privilege, of the elevation of white mediocrity and the narrative shifts of how champions of different races are perceived. The fact that this conversation is still happening even after we now know that Maria had been taking a performance-enhancing drug for years and was actually suspended for it, is still fascinating and disturbing. Maria was ?allowed? to treat her comeback from suspension as some kind of deranged fairytale, with sports writers and ESPN commentators doing the heavy lifting to say that yes, this cheating, lying a–hole ensconced in white privilege has ?so much support? and she was ?just away for a year.?
Anyway, there are some additional excerpts from Sharapova?s book. We already know that Maria includes a second-hand account of how someone told her that they heard Serena call Maria a ?little bitch? after the 2004 Wimbledon match. Maria has even more to say about Serena and how ?thick? and ?intimidating? she is. Do you hear those racist dog-whistles?
Hearing Serena cry after she lost to Maria in 2004: ?I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for it? I think Serena hated me for being the skinny kid who beat her, against all odds, at Wimbledon. I think she hated me for taking something that she believed belonged to her. I think she hated me for seeing her at her lowest moment. But mostly I think she hated me for hearing her cry. She’s never forgiven me for it.?
On Serena?s physicality and presence: ?First of all her physical presence is much stronger and bigger than you realize watching TV. She has thick arms and thick legs and is so intimidating and strong. It’s the whole thing ? her presence, her confidence, her personality? Even now, she can make me feel like a little girl’, Maria writes, and says she deals with it with ‘a maddening composure and a stately calm’.
[From The Daily Mail]
I?ll quote 30 Rock?s D?Fwan: ?Never talk about a black woman?s leg size, not on babies, not on the Williams sisters, not on a mannequin at Avenue.? NEVER. Obviously, ?Little Bitch? Sharapova doesn?t mind some racialized and racist dog-whistles. She?s still painting herself as the innocent, doomed little white girl who can?t help but be overpowered by the BIG SCARY INTIMIDATING black woman. Maria will soon hand-deliver quotes to People Magazine about how she?s an innocent white baby and Kanye West was mean to her too.
Also: I don?t know why Sharapova thinks she?s so f–king small? She?s 6?2? and Serena is 5?9?. Everybody – especially Maria – gets so salty about Serena?s serve, arguably the greatest serve in the women?s game, of all time. Serena manages to out-serve much taller opponents like Maria all the time. You know why? Because she?s smarter than them. Not because she?s a big thick intimidating black woman.
Photos courtesy of WENN, PCN.
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| | Maria Sharapova finally lost at the US Open, ending her deranged 'fairy tale' | | Added 6 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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With so many top players out of the US Open this year – because of injuries and babies – it?s been sort of nice to see what other storylines are coming to the forefront. Would we be paying THIS much attention to Sam Querrey and Sloane Stephens if Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Serena Williams were playing in New York this year? Maybe, maybe not. But it was always going to be a big story that the US Open gave Maria Sharapova a Wild Card following her fifteen-month-long doping suspension. Sharapova has been ?back? on the tour since April, although she?s been plagued with injuries since her return.
The US Open is the first Slam Maria competed in since her suspension, and the New York crowd seemed to welcome her back passionately. Maria has been milking it for a week, treating her ?comeback? as a fairytale, like she overcame the most trying and devastating conditions, as opposed to ?serving out a doping suspension.? Many people weren?t buying what Maria was selling, and it didn?t help that Sharapova is a sh-tty actress. Maria played on the biggest court, Arthur Ashe Stadium, for all of her matches, including Sunday?s fourth round match, where Latvian player Anastasija Sevastova FINALLY handed Maria her ass, deservedly. Maria even had to call for the trainer mid-match because she had a blister on her hand!
Before Maria got her ass handed to her (deservedly), she threw some shade at Caroline Wozniacki. The Woz is a former world #1 and currently ranked in the top ten. Wozniacki came into the US Open with more match wins this year than any other player in the WTA. The Woz has never been suspended for doping either. This is what The Woz said about Maria, after Caroline lost in her first round, which was played on a smaller back court.
To me, Caroline had a valid point – she wasn?t saying she lost her match because she was on a smaller, less prestigious court. She?s saying that it?s morally wrong to play into Maria?s deranged fairytale-narrative that Maria has, like, overcome the odds or whatever. It?s a bad message to send to younger players and all of the players who manage to compete without doping. Maria?s reaction was just what you would expect: petty. Maria said in one of her last press conferences that the court she plays on is ?not what matters to me. All that matters to me is I’m in the fourth round. I’m not sure where she is.”
The WTA needs to figure out a better way to handle this, honestly. Tournaments can?t keep on treating Maria like her ?comeback? has been some kind of fairytale, especially not at the expense of top players who have never been suspended for doping. Especially when they have truly great stories to promote, like Sloane Stephens and Petra Kvitova, who are both onto the quarterfinals following their legitimate injuries in the past year. I’m not sure where Maria is.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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| | Maria Sharapova still doesn't care about being 'a nice girl in the locker room' | | Added 7 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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I?m not a Maria Sharapova fan. I?ll just say that at the onset. I haven?t missed Sharapova in the past year, during which she was banned for testing positive for a banned substance, meldonium. Sharapova had been taking meldonium for years, but as of January 2016, it was put on the banned list and Sharapova didn?t read the updated banned-substances list as thoroughly as she needed to, or at least that was her excuse. She was supposed to be banned from professional tennis for two years, but her sentence was later appealed and brought down to 16 months. That means Sharapova – who turns 30 in April – will be able to play some tournaments in the clay-court season. She?s already scheduled to play Stuttgart and the French Open.
So, to celebrate her return, Maria granted an interview to Vogue in what she probably hopes will be the first part of her rehabilitation – the rehabing of her image, that is. The thing is? even thought Vogue wants to paint Sharapova?s return as some grand portrait of struggle over adversity, I just don?t think anyone missed her and I don?t think anyone is truly looking forward to her return. Except for the advertisers, maybe. That?s pretty clear: Sharapova was, at the time of her banning, the highest-paid female athlete in the world. Nevermind that Serena Williams is arguably the most dominant female athlete of all time, Maria was always the highest-paid when it came to endorsements. Because she?s pretty and blonde. And all of Sharapova?s endorsements are coming back this year. Who cares about doping when there?s a pretty blonde on court, right? Anyway, you can read the full Vogue piece here. Some highlights:
Her 15 months off the court: ?This past year, my intake of alcohol was so much more than ever in my life. But it was because I actually had a social life!?
Tennis is not her religion: ?I think I?d go crazy if I was only a tennis player. Seriously.?
She doesn?t have friends on the tour. ?I spend as little time in the locker room as I can get away with, because I?ve set up another life. I have family, I have friends. And the less time I spend there, the more energy I have for them. I?m respected for what I do on the court, and that?s much more meaningful to me than someone saying that I?m a nice girl in a locker room.?
These are the people contacted for the Vogue piece but wouldn?t go on the record to writer Jonathan Van Meter: ?Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Mary Carillo, and Pam Shriver all declined to talk to me about Sharapova.?
On her meldonium usage: ?I had been taking it for ten years and for about seven of those years I had gotten a written certificate from a WADA-accredited lab that all the substances I was taking were totally fine for me to take. I just became completely comfortable that they were fine. That?s the mistake I made: being too comfortable.?
Whether she believes she?ll still have a cloud of suspicion over her head: ?I think if I was trying to hide something, I don?t think I would come out to the world and say I was taking a drug for ten years. If I was really trying to take the easy way out, that?s not a very smart thing to do? But the answer to your question is, absolutely.?
Whether she ever talks to her Russian family about politics & the election: ?Not at all; we never discuss politics. I carry such a big part of my country in my soul. When I host people at home, I think of my grandmother?s afternoon tea. I remember being around books?Tolstoy, Pushkin, my mother reciting poetry. That?s the piece of Russia that I have in me.?
Her rivalry with Serena Williams: ?We?re not celebrated as two women with completely different backgrounds who have created incredible opportunities for ourselves and our families. Instead we are ranked against each other for our differences, our game, our earnings. I think the concept of lists and the amount that players make is bollocks. It would be so easy when you?ve gone through injuries and setbacks to just let it all go. But to have that desire still? The amount of respect that I have for her as an athlete is enormous.?
Breaking off her engagement with Grigor Dimitrov: She has been pretty much single since she and Dimitrov broke up. It did not end well. But one night a couple of months ago she ran into him in New York City. They hadn?t seen each other since the summer of 2015. ?We closed down a restaurant after talking for five hours,? she says. ?He was such an important part of my life, and he?s a very delicate, complicated person. It was so nice to just be normal human beings.?
She believes she?s well-liked by fans: ?Ever since all this happened, I?ve had so many strangers actually come up to me. Like chefs coming out of the kitchen, or pilots come out of the cockpit to say something. It is so heartening. I?ve had tunnel vision about my career, and I don?t think I ever realized the effect I?ve had on people. That has blown my mind.?
[From Vogue]
What speaks volumes to me is that it?s mostly left up to Sharapova to tell Jonathan Van Meter about how much people have missed her and how the fans are really looking forward to seeing her. Like, Chrissy Evert isn’t saying that. Martina isn?t saying that. Billie Jean isn?t saying that. No one on the WTA tour is saying that. They could only really get Paul Annacone – who is Roger Federer?s former coach – to say that yeah, people missed Sharapova and those people are mostly advertisers. I understand that, sort of – Sharapova is a known quantity and I guess advertisers would rather rebuild their relationship with her as opposed to developing relationships with truly inspiring younger players like Garbine Muguruza (who is ADORABLE), Karolina Pliskova (who is utterly charming) or Monica Puig (Olympic gold and she?s very pretty). So, yeah? Sharapova?s back. But for how long? How far will she go in the French? I bet she doesn?t even make it to the fourth round.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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| | Maria Sharapova Works Her Bikini On Instagram | | Added 7 years ago | Source: HollywoodTuna |
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I’m not entirely clear on whetherMaria Sharapova is still banned from playing tennis or not, considering Ionly watchthe sportfor the highlights (ofhotties grunting in short skirts, naturally), but if she is, here’s hoping they find some reason to extend it. Because I don’t know about you perverts, but I could definitely get used to the […]
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| | Maria Sharapova will spend her two-year ban at Harvard Business School | | Added 7 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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I just believe, on a fundamental level, that Maria Sharapova has handled her doping scandal the wrong way. Maybe that?s not entirely on her though: while Maria often comes across as almost delusional and arrogant, it?s not like her largest corporate sponsors are abandoning her, remember? Like, in the elite-sporting world, Sharapova?s moves post-ban have been received positively. She still has endorsement contracts with three large corporations, and hell, she thinks she might even get the ban lifted in time to play at the Rio Olympics. But maybe Maria knows that she?s going to lose her appeal (with good reason) and maybe she knows that she?s going to spend the next two years sitting out professional tennis. Because Maria is going to Harvard now.
Maria Sharapova is headed to Harvard Business School for a two-week program this summer. The 29-year-old Russian tennis star posted on Facebook and Twitter on Saturday a picture of her seated next to a sign for the school and the message: ??Not sure how this happened but Hey Harvard! Can?t wait to start the program!?
Her agent Max Eisenbud said Monday that the program involves two classes on campus. Eisenbud wasn?t clear what certification, if any, she?d earn from the coursework.
A Harvard spokesman didn?t comment Monday.
Sharapova was handed a two-year ban by the International Tennis Federation after she tested positive for meldonium at the Australian Open in January. The substance had been banned at the start of 2016. The five-time Grand Slam champion and former No. 1-ranked player has appealed the ban.
[From The NY Post]
While I?m sure this will be received as a smart move on Maria?s part ? she is, after all, a more successful model/businesswoman than a tennis player ? I have to wonder if Harvard wants this association? Would Harvard want to be connected to an athlete convicted of doping? Does Harvard want to be the Plan B for athletes who get two-year bans for doping?
Not sure how this happened but Hey Harvard! Can't wait to start the program! ?? pic.twitter.com/EOoKYhaQli
— Maria Sharapova (@MariaSharapova) June 25, 2016
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