Maria Sharapova felt she had fallen into "a bottomless hole" of despair in the aftermath of her drug ban from tennis.
Sharapova graces the cover of the new Hamptons Magazine and opens up about her state of mind.
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In a candid interview with writer Ann Liguori, Sharapova discusses writing her memoir, Unstoppable: My Life So Far with Rich Cohen and how she coped with the pain of her 15-month suspension from the pro circuit after testing positive for the banned substance meldonium following her loss to Serena Williams in the 2016 Australian Open quarterfinals.
"It’s the frame of mind that I had from early last year, from the first few days of when I found out that I’d be out of the game for a while," Sharapova told the magazine. "It’s the attitude that I carried with me throughout this whole period, and that also comes from my life experience."
The 30-year-old Russian said her challenging childhood helped prepare her for the fall-out from her drug ban. As a child, Sharapova left her home and mother, Yelena, to move to Florida with her father, Yuri, and train at the IMG Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy.
The five-time Grand Slam champion said it made her sad to think "I ever took the easy way out."
"As I look back at who I am as a person and what I’ve achieved, it was definitely sad to think that anyone would say I ever took the easy way out," Sharapova said. "As you read the story, it shares a lot of that tough journey, and the easy way out was never even in the cards!
"My feelings [were] like, You’re going into this deep hole and yet you still have so many years ahead of you… how are you going to turn this around? How are you going to step up? Those are all things that I think parts of my childhood really prepared me for, and with the way that I’ve been able to handle it. I can say that I’m proud of where I’ve come to be."
This is Sharapova's second appearance as the cover model for Hamptons Magazine, following her 2012 appearance.
Asked if she believes she return to the top of the game with former No. 1 Serena Williams off the tour while pregnant with her first child, Sharapova said she's not looking that far ahead.
"I can’t look past the fact that I haven’t played for a long period of time, and you can never replicate what you do in training to playing matches," Sharapova told the magazine. "So I have to look at what’s ahead of me, and that’s the next match and the next tournament. It takes a lot to get that feeling back of the repetitiveness, the match play, of playing five matches in seven days.
"The physicality of it is very intense, and that’s one of the things a lot of people overlook, the amount of physical strain the body goes through in a week. To be able to do it week in, week out is an adjustment for someone who hasn’t played for a while. So that’s where my mind and my focus is, rather than who I’m going to be playing against."
Photo credit: Porsche