What Did Maria Sharapova Mean to Tennis?
The Lead
Audible
3.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Last week, Maria Sharapova announced her retirement. She won five grand slams during her 19-year career — including a signature win over Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2004 — but also leaves behind a complicated legacy. Today, we’re joined by The Athletic’s Charlie Eccleshare to discuss Sharapova’s reputation as a ruthless competitor, the fallout from her late-career doping suspension, and her intense — but actually one-sided — rivalry with Serena Williams.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Last week, Maria Sharapova told the world that her tennis career is over. |
| 0:11.2 | Former World No. 1, Maria Sharapova has announced she is saying goodbye to tennis. |
| 0:18.4 | The five-time Grand Slam winner announced her retirement in an essay for Vogue and Vanity |
| 0:23.6 | Fair. |
| 0:24.6 | Sharapova had an outstanding career, including five Grand Slam singles titles and a signature |
| 0:29.4 | victory over Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2004. |
| 0:33.2 | But she also has a complicated legacy. |
| 0:35.9 | Today, we're joined by the athletics Charlie Eccleshire to look at Sharapova's reputation |
| 0:40.8 | as a cold and ruthless competitor, the fallout from her doping suspension and her heated, |
| 0:47.3 | but actually one-sided, rivalry with Serena Williams. |
| 0:51.1 | The obvious are taught to that as well. |
| 0:52.6 | She's not exactly unstoppable because Serena can't stop beating her. |
| 0:58.4 | From wondering in the athletic, I'm Kavita Davidson. |
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| 1:39.5 | Hello, I'm Hannah. |
| 1:41.5 | And I'm Seruti. |
| 1:42.5 | And we are the hosts of a Red Handed, a weekly True Crime Podcast. |
| 1:46.2 | Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. |
| 1:49.6 | From the Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch |
| 1:54.1 | saga. |
| 1:55.8 | We also started a second weekly show, Short Hand, which is just an excuse for us to talk |
... |
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