Maria Sharapova: I feel vulnerable

Emotional, raw, open. This is a new side to Maria Sharapova.

The five-time Grand Slam champion has penned a piece for The Players’ Tribune sharing her experience of returning to the tour after serving a 15-month suspension for using meldonium.

It is surprising for a player who has, with a trademark steely gaze, continually refused to comment on the harsh criticisms many fellow players have made about her return to the sport.

“My tennis speaks for itself, and that’s what I focus on,” Sharapova told reporters at Madrid in May.

The Russian has established a strong yet reserved persona throughout her stellar career, one that is aloof and imperturbable – until now.

“The truth is, I feel vulnerable all the time — no different from any other person. And the walls I’ve built around myself … they aren’t nearly as impenetrable as people think. Things still get through, and still make me feel certain ways,” Sharapova wrote.

“I’m not oblivious. I’m aware of what many of my peers have said about me, and how critical of me some of them have been in the press. If you’re a human being with a normal, beating heart, you know … I don’t think that sort of thing will ever fully be possible to ignore. And I don’t think it will ever not be weird or hurtful to go through.

“But at the same time … I’ve always tried to keep a generous attitude toward critics in general — whoever they are, and whenever they’ve been there. I’ve never wanted to respond to the people trashing me by trashing them back; that’s always been important to me. I’ve always wanted to respond by showing grace — something I learned from my mom, one of the most graceful and elegant people I know. I’ve always wanted to face my critics by simply taking the high road. And by showing them, by showing everyone, that taking the high road is a choice.

“In the end, in my heart, I honestly do have so much respect and admiration for everyone on tour — including my critics. And eventually I hope they’ll change their minds, and have the same for me.”

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Sharapova details her nerves in her return and admits to having a new-found appreciation for her many fans.

“Tennis will isolate you, and exhaust you, and wear you down, and test your resolve, in some of the most brutal ways possible. But if you can just make it through … then it will also reward you in ways that are beyond compare,” she noted.

“If you love tennis enough, then at the end of the day, it will love you back.

“And though these last two years have been tougher — so much tougher — than I ever could have anticipated … my passion for the game has never wavered. If anything, it’s only grown stronger.”

Set to return to WTA competition next week at Stanford, the 30-year-old Sharapova has a renewed focus.

“Now I feel like it’s my turn, finally, to pay them (my fans) back,” she wrote. “Because if there’s anything that I most would like to accomplish during the next phase of my career, I think it’s this: being a player and a person worth cheering for — for this group of fans who have been so loyal to me.”

> Read Maria Sharapova’s full article here