{"id":776116,"date":"2026-07-03T08:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776116\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T08:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:50:11","slug":"maria-sharapova-says-she-used-tennis-breaks-to-prepare-for-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776116\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Sharapova Says She Used Tennis Breaks to Prepare for Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maria Sharapova<\/a>, 39, says she used injuries and time off from tennis to prepare for life after retirement.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the WSJ Leadership Institute<\/a> published Tuesday, Sharapova said she began planning her next chapter years before stepping away from the sport.<\/p>\n

“I recognized from an early age that as a woman, my career would end much sooner than in other professions,” Sharapova said. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to hustle. I’ve got to start learning from other people.'”<\/p>\n

She said she also realized that her growing profile as a tennis star gave her “a platform” that opened doors beyond the sport.<\/p>\n

As she became more financially secure, she began making investments she hoped would “turn into solid return on investment in the future,” Sharapova said.<\/p>\n

“When I was injured, or I had a break, I’d go to a business school, I would take a few weeks. I would grow, I would take internships. I went to the NBA for a few weeks to shadow Adam Silver,” Sharapova said about the league’s commissioner.<\/p>\n

She said she intentionally used the time off from the sport to broaden her knowledge beyond tennis.<\/p>\n

“There are elements of growth that even though you’re progressing in one arena, I thought it was really critical and important to help grow in others,” she said.<\/p>\n

Sharapova won her first Grand Slam title at age 17. During her career, she won four more Grand Slam titles and was the world’s highest-paid female athlete <\/a>for 11 consecutive years. In 2020, at age 32, she announced her retirement<\/a> from professional tennis.<\/p>\n

Sharapova began building her business portfolio by launching her candy brand, Sugarpova, in 2012.<\/p>\n

In 2016, she received a 15-month doping ban after testing positive for meldonium.<\/p>\n

During her time away from the sport, Sharapova enrolled in a global management course and a leadership course at Harvard Business School, she told CNBC Make It<\/a> in 2018. <\/p>\n

Sharapova also interned at the NBA, working with Silver. <\/p>\n

“She took part in many of our department meetings to learn about the NBA operations,” a spokesperson for Silver told The New York Post<\/a> in 2016.<\/p>\n

Other athletes have also used their playing careers to lay the groundwork for a second act.<\/p>\n

Serena Williams<\/a> launched venture capital firm Serena Ventures<\/a> in 2014 while she was still competing and later said she hoped to be remembered for more than her tennis career.<\/p>\n

“I admire Billie Jean because she transcended her sport. I’d like it to be: Serena is this and she’s that and she was a great tennis player and she won those slams,” Williams wrote in a column for Vogue<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

In a 2022 interview with GQ<\/a>, Tom Brady said he started thinking about his retirement a decade before he retired.<\/p>\n

“I’d watched a lot of athletes’ careers end, and they don’t have anything enjoyable they can get into, and then there’s too much free time on their hands. I was like, that’s not gonna be me. I’m gonna do really cool things in my second career,” Brady said.<\/p>\n

Brady briefly retired in 2022<\/a> before returning for one final NFL season<\/a>. He retired for good in February 2023.<\/p>\n

Since retiring, Brady has expanded his business portfolio. He launched his apparel brand BRADY, invested in various sports teams<\/a> and signed a 10-year, $375 million contract<\/a> with Fox Sports as its lead NFL analyst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria Sharapova, 39, says she used injuries and time off from tennis to prepare for life after retirement.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[7639,64,63,8775,3326,368113,368114,1000,5474,51134,590,368115,1793,588,85,747,6618,30663],"class_list":["post-776116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-adam-silver","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business-school","tag-career","tag-early-age","tag-first-grand-slam-title","tag-interview","tag-investment","tag-maria-sharapova","tag-nba","tag-other-athlete","tag-retirement","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-time","tag-tom-brady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}