Madrid: Maria Sharapova appears in the hotel lobby in canary yellow shorts and a grey sweater, her face still flushed from an hour-long workout in the gym.
“Hi, I’m Maria,” she says, extending a hand.
Sharapova has one of the most recognisable - and marketable - faces in the world. She became an overnight sensation more than a decade ago, as the tall, blonde, preternaturally cool tennis player who won her first Wimbledon title aged only 17. In the years since, she has added another four Grand Slam titles to her name, becoming one of just 10 female players to win at least once in Melbourne, Paris, Wimbledon and New York - the most coveted titles in tennis.
Her sporting triumphs have been matched perhaps only by her success off the court. Sharapova has only rarely been the very best tennis player in the world - but she has long been the sport’s biggest brand. Through victory and through defeat, Sharapova has topped the Forbes ranking of the world’s highest-paid female athlete every year for the past decade.
Nike, Porsche, Evian, TAG Heuer and a raft of other companies pay her more than $20 million (Dh73.46 million) in annual endorsements (10 times her earnings from prize money in 2014). In return, they get to place her image alongside their products on billboards, magazines and screens worldwide. They also gain access to her vast following on social media, which has reached 1.6 million on Twitter and nearly 15 million on Facebook. She has her own web app, and is building a candy-to-clothing business present in 30 markets. Sharapova is more than familiar; she is ubiquitous.
She is in the Spanish capital to compete in the Madrid Open, a clay court tournament that ranks just below the Grand Slam events for importance. She won the title here last year, before battling her way to an emotional second victory in Paris. At 28, Sharapova knows she only has a few more years left to add to her haul of titles.
Her ambition clearly burns as brightly as ever but there is a subtle change in motivation. “If I ever needed to prove anything to anyone else I think I have,” she says.
Sharapova’s last two grand slam titles (both in Paris) came after tearing her rotator cuff, a potentially career-ending shoulder injury that required surgery in late 2008. She couldn’t play tennis for nine months, missed two Grand Slams and dropped to 126 in the rankings. It would take her three years to struggle back into a grand slam final, and four to actually win one. The shoulder has given her trouble on several occasions since, most recently in late 2013.
“The toughest part was not really having many examples of people who came back from shoulder injury,” she recalls. “I was never able to think of someone and say to myself, ‘OK, they went through this and got back their strokes.’”
Indeed, neither did Sharapova. “It put a lot of doubts in my game. My game was based on being powerful and hitting very deep strokes. The serve especially was really challenging because all of a sudden I was losing my speed, I was losing my feel . . . The way I was able to serve as a 17-year-old, my shoulder will never be able to support that again.”
Reinventing her game
Sharapova ended up reinventing key parts of her game - essentially swapping raw power for a more patient, tactical approach. Her serve has lost its early-career bite but she has vastly improved her return and added new facets to her game, most notably the drop shot. In most matches, Sharapova will try to occupy a central position just inside the baseline. From here, she can dictate the run of play, whipping the ball from one side of the court to the other, and forcing her opponent into a desperate, exhausting chase until she sees the chance to put the ball out of reach.
It is a style of play that suits slower surfaces such as clay better than grass and hard courts. All her Grand Slam titles before her operation came on fast courts. Her two grand slam trophies since have been on clay - in Paris - as was her most recent tournament win, in Rome last week. Returned to the number two position in the WTA ranking, she will try to defend her French Open title starting this weekend - and rekindle her decade-long quest to beat the world number one, Serena Williams.
If Sharapova fails to win Paris this year - or anywhere else for that matter - it will not be for a lack of willpower or fight. It will be because Sharapova’s professional career has overlapped with that of arguably the greatest female tennis player of all time, her eternal rival and perpetual nemesis, Serena Williams.
She beat Williams, surprisingly comfortably, in that breakthrough 2004 Wimbledon final. Giggling her way through the post-match interview on court, the teenage Sharapova turned to her opponent and said: “I know there will be so many more moments when we will play [each other] . . . and fight for the trophy. Thank you for giving me a tough match but I am sorry - I had to win today.”
It turned out she was tempting fate. Since 2004, the two players have met on 16 occasions, and Williams won every single one of their encounters, usually in straight sets.
“When you play against the number one, a lot of things have to work for you. You cannot make unforced errors, you cannot give away easy points, you cannot give her confidence, you can’t be playing at the highest level all the time. What is important is to take advantage of the moments when her ball is coming a bit short or when you have opportunities with her second serve.”
Does she think she can beat Williams one day? There is not a second’s hesitation: “Absolutely.”
— Financial Times
