{"id":488046,"date":"2026-02-24T17:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/488046\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:59:12","slug":"i-had-to-do-it-like-a-gentleman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/488046\/","title":{"rendered":"I had to do it like a gentleman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in October 2010, Los Angeles Lakers sharpshooter\u00a0Sasha Vujacic<\/a>\u00a0was brimming with delight and elation as he confirmed the news that he had become engaged to world-renowned tennis icon Maria Sharapova.<\/p>\n

For Vujacic, the moment wasn’t just a celebrity pairing, but a deeply personal milestone that he was eager to share with the world. He also declared that it marked the beginning of their high point as a couple.<\/p>\n

“We are engaged and are both really happy,”\u00a0Vujacic\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0before a Lakers exhibition game against the\u00a0Golden State Warriors<\/a>.\u00a0“It’s good, and now we can focus on other things.”<\/p>\n

Vujacic also took pride in the romantic sincerity of his wedding proposal. He revealed that he had opted for an “old school” approach to win the five-time grand slam winner’s hand and chose to pop the question on the first anniversary of the day they first met.<\/p>\n

“It’s was probably old school,”\u00a0Sasha said of his proposal.\u00a0“I had to do it like a gentleman.”<\/p>\n

Sasha and Maria had to break up<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the fairytale sports pairing faced the harsh reality. Despite the initial excitement of their engagement, the couple’s relationship began to strain under the weight of their professional commitments.<\/p>\n

By 2012, Vujacic and Sharapova’s\u00a0engagement had officially come to an end<\/a>. Maria later candidly reflected on the split, disclosing that the primary culprit was their grueling, conflicting schedules as athletes.<\/p>\n

At the time, “The Machine” left the\u00a0NBA<\/a>\u00a0to play basketball overseas. He signed with Anadolu Efes, a Turkish ball club based in Istanbul. Sharapova, meanwhile, was competing in different tournaments in France and the U.K.<\/p>\n

After their breakup, Sasha and “The Siberian Siren” both moved forward. They officially transitioned from lovers to friends.<\/p>\n

“It was obviously a challenging decision, you know, from both of our ends,”\u00a0she\u00a0revealed<\/a>.\u00a0“We have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. Still would love to call him a friend. We spent really great years together.”<\/p>\n

“It was a really nice period of time for both of us, but you know, our career schedules just made it extremely difficult to see each other with the traveling, and especially his career move to Turkey,”\u00a0Maria added.\u00a0“He wasn’t able to travel much. He wasn’t home one time during the 10 months that he was in Turkey, so that made it extremely difficult.”<\/p>\n

Related: “I’m locking his boney a-s up… lock that white MF up” – Patrick Beverley thinks he would clamp down The Professor<\/a><\/p>\n

Living separate lives<\/p>\n

As it stands, both Vujacic and Sharapova are retired from their respective professional sports and seem to be enjoying their separate lives.<\/p>\n

The two-time NBA champion was previously linked to TV presenter Kristine Leahy, but as of early 2026, Vujacic is believed to have kept his personal life private. He is reportedly laser-focused on business ventures.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Maria is currently engaged to British businessman Alexander Gilkes. In July 2022, the couple welcomed their first child, Theodore.<\/p>\n

Related: “Do that to me” – Brian Shaw recalled how he and Kobe Bryant almost had to fight because of the way Mamba bullied Sasha Vujacic<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Feb 24, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in October 2010, Los Angeles Lakers sharpshooter\u00a0Sasha Vujacic\u00a0was brimming with delight and elation as he confirmed the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[2243,1055,13753,180736,99,428],"class_list":["post-488046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-maria-sharapova","tag-sasha-vujacic","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}