Maria Sharapova Says She Used Tennis Breaks to Prepare for Retirement

Maria Sharapova, 39, says she used accidents and day off from tennis to organize for all times after retirement.

In an interview with the WSJ Leadership Institute printed Tuesday, Sharapova stated she started planning her subsequent chapter years earlier than stepping away from the game.

“I acknowledged from an early age that as a girl, my profession would finish a lot prior to in different professions,” Sharapova stated. “I used to be like, ‘I’ve obtained to hustle. I’ve obtained to start out studying from different individuals.'”

She stated she additionally realized that her rising profile as a tennis star gave her “a platform” that opened doorways past the game.

As she turned extra financially safe, she started making investments she hoped would “flip into stable return on funding sooner or later,” Sharapova stated.

“After I was injured, or I had a break, I might go to a enterprise college, I’d take a number of weeks. I’d develop, I’d take internships. I went to the NBA for a number of weeks to shadow Adam Silver,” Sharapova stated in regards to the league’s commissioner.

She stated she deliberately used the day off from the game to broaden her data past tennis.

“There are components of progress that though you are progressing in a single area, I believed it was actually essential and essential to assist develop in others,” she stated.

Sharapova gained her first Grand Slam title at age 17. Throughout her profession, she gained 4 extra Grand Slam titles and was the world’s highest-paid female athlete for 11 consecutive years. In 2020, at age 32, she announced her retirement from skilled tennis.

Sharapova started constructing her enterprise portfolio by launching her sweet model, Sugarpova, in 2012.

In 2016, she obtained a 15-month doping ban after testing optimistic for meldonium.

Throughout her time away from the game, Sharapova enrolled in a world administration course and a management course at Harvard Enterprise College, she informed CNBC Make It in 2018.

Sharapova additionally interned on the NBA, working with Silver.

“She took half in lots of our division conferences to be taught in regards to the NBA operations,” a spokesperson for Silver informed The New York Post in 2016.

Different athletes have additionally used their enjoying careers to put the groundwork for a second act.

Serena Williams launched enterprise capital agency Serena Ventures in 2014 whereas she was nonetheless competing and later stated she hoped to be remembered for greater than her tennis profession.

“I love Billie Jean as a result of she transcended her sport. I might prefer it to be: Serena is that this and he or she’s that and he or she was an amazing tennis participant and he or she gained these slams,” Williams wrote in a column for Vogue in 2022.

In a 2022 interview with GQ, Tom Brady stated he began serious about his retirement a decade earlier than he retired.

“I might watched numerous athletes’ careers finish, and so they haven’t got something satisfying they’ll get into, after which there’s an excessive amount of free time on their palms. I used to be like, that is not gonna be me. I am gonna do actually cool issues in my second profession,” Brady stated.

Brady briefly retired in 2022 earlier than returning for one final NFL season. He retired for good in February 2023.

Since retiring, Brady has expanded his enterprise portfolio. He launched his attire model BRADY, invested in various sports teams and signed a 10-year, $375 million contract with Fox Sports activities as its lead NFL analyst.