Into the Unknown
Mario Sharapova, preparing to play next week in her first WTA tournament in the United States since her suspension ended, wrote an article for 'The Players' Tribune' -- a media platform that publishes first-person stories directly from athletes, presents direct reflections, thoughts and experiences of professional athletes. Here former World No 1 Sharapova talks about her thoughts on her return
Before my first match back from suspension, it seemed like everyone in my life only wanted to know one thing: How I was going to feel. And my answer would always be the same: I have no clue. And I think at first my instinct was to prepare. And why not, you know? After all, that's my job -- to prepare for every match.
But pretty soon, I think I realized that any preparation like that would be futile. That this was just one of those things. And that no matter how hard I tried, there simply wouldn't be any way to train for what was to come. I was just going to have to step out onto that court, and take a deep breath, and have no clue.
I was going to have to walk out into the unknown.
As a tennis player, I find that I'm constantly at the center of this battle, this push and pull, of certainty vs. uncertainty in my world. There are the certainties of routine, of course: nonstop gym, nonstop practice, nonstop travel, nonstop sleeping in a bed away from home, nonstop lonely thirty-minute car rides to the courts while listening to random music, nonstop calendar that seems to loop back in on itself before you can blink.
But there are also, in this weird way, uncertainties of routine: Every tournament has its own balls and a different surface. Every day there's a new opponent and weather conditions. How do you prepare for those?
And after 15 years of those routines, it really is just the strangest feeling: The clock, the schedule, the calendar -- how it never stops. And yet, how it always feels like it's starting back at zero.
Even that particular moment, preparing for my first match back after 15 months, it felt like that. Part of me felt like I had been through this before: I'd had my shoulder surgery, in 2008, and done most of the same long-term training; from that experience alone, I was pretty certain I could take extended time off and get my level back.
But another part of me knew there was something unique about this particular time off. There is something about a suspension -- the judgments, the scrutiny and the emotional toll -- that is hard to compare to anything else.
There was the known and there was the unknown. There was coming back -- and then there was believing it.
I cherish my fans, and I know how essential they've been to my success. I know all of that. But there's knowing and then there's knowing. After the news broke they stuck with me. After the ruling they stuck with me. During the suspension they stuck with me. And when I got back to the court, I'll never forget it.
In my first tournament back, very quickly, when they saw me, a bunch of my fans gathered around the court to watch the practice. And they had Russian flags and these 'WELCOME BACK, MARIA' signs that they had made and they were just clapping, and yelling, and cheering for me, the whole while.
I'm a laser beam of focus during practice, but in that moment, I kind of lost it. Just the idea of these fans choosing me and then sticking with me, after all that's happened and then taking the time to make these signs and then traveling to this one practice court and supporting.
And now I feel like it's my turn, finally, to pay them back. Because if there's anything that I most would like to accomplish during the next phase of my career, I think it's this: being a player and a person worth cheering for.
If you love tennis enough, then at the end of the day, it will love you back. And though these last two years have been tougher -- so much tougher -- than I ever could have anticipated my passion for the game has never wavered. When it comes to tennis, good or bad — there's really only one thing that I know for certain.
I've missed it.
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