Maria Sharapova On Her Professional Tennis Suspension: ‘I Felt So Small’

By Cat Williams. Published: 31 Aug 2017 4:07 PM

Maria Sharapova is opening up about her suspension from professional tennis, which put her athletic career on a sudden hold early last year.

Speaking with Net-A-Porter’s weekly digital magazine The EDIT, the 30-year-old Russian tennis star explains that while her suspension from the sport was incredibly tough at times, receiving a positive test for the now-prohibited substance meldonium back in January 2016 gave her the opportunity to live a normal life.

“I felt so small,” the five-time Grand Slam champion explains. “For a woman who’s tall and powerful – an athlete – it was a very distant feeling.” Explaining the harsh criticism she received, Sharapova adds, “I faced so many days where I questioned people around me and what they thought; I’d never done that before.”

Addressing the time away she had to live like a “normal person”, she recalls, “My 30th birthday was coming up in April and I said, ‘I just want to celebrate my birthday as a normal human being.’ It’s as if God heard those words and said, ‘Oh, you want a normal 30th birthday? Okay, I’ll give you 15 months of normalcy!'”

Sharapova, who claimed to be taking the recently banned drug for 10 years following a doctor’s recommendation, had her suspension lifted nine months early, leading the former top-earning sportswoman to make her return in April this year at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.

Speaking about her return to the tennis court, Sharapova, who is set to release her autobiography, Unstoppable: My Life So Far, on Sept. 12, says she wasn’t nervous to face her opponents. She explains, “I walked into the arena like I deserved to be there. I felt like I did. That has been my stage for so long, and I love every second of it.”