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Former tennis player Maria Sharapova returned to the US Open in Flushing Meadows as a spectator and said she has no plans to return to the court.
The 36-year-old Russian — who welcomed a son, Theodore, with her fiancé Alexander Gilkes, on July 1, 2022 — turned heads in a red power suit when she attended opening day just to be a spectator.
“I’m very happy with where I am at this stage of life,” Sharapova said in an interview. “I appreciate what the sport has taught me and where it’s taken me, but I definitely love seeing it from the outside now.”
Sharapova, a former five-time Grand Slam champion, retired from professional tennis after the 2020 Australian Open. Sharapova says she absolutely loves this position where she can come to a tennis tournament and just be a tennis spectator.
“I love it. I love having an outsider’s perspective. I love watching the new generations unfold, and the sport in general. In fact, I think the US Open is the only tennis event that I’ve been to in person since I retired. It’s a really special one, with the energy of the crowds there,” she added.
“In fact, I think the US Open is the only tennis event that I’ve been to in person since I retired. It’s a really special one, with the energy of the crowds there.”
Sharapova attended the tournament with fashion designer Gabriela Hearst and shared a photo of the pair on her Instagram Story. In recent years and times, there have been several cases of players returning to tennis after pregnancy but Sharapova won’t be going that route.
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Sharapova also revealed the lessons that tennis taught her and explained that many things have taken a backseat to motherhood.
“You learn so many lessons as a professional tennis player, and one of the biggest ones is how to handle yourself whether you win or whether you lose.”
“There are so many things you can’t control, and that’s OK. You have to learn to accept that, which for me was always a work in progress. But you also learn how you take care of your body, and ask yourself, are you eating nutritious foods? Are you drinking enough water? So all those components of being an athlete are just incredible educational tools for taking you to different parts of your life, like parenthood,” Sharapova said.
Sharapova confirmed her engagement to Gilkes, a British businessman and co-founder of online auction house Paddle8, in December 2020.
