Maria Sharapova retired from tennis in February 2020 after breaking onto the scene win as a 17-year-old with a Wimbledon win in 2004.
But Russian tennis star's doping controversy overshadowed her title wins over her career. She failed a drug test at the 2016 Australian Open, Sharapova tested positive for meldonium, an anti-ischemic drug that was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s banned substances list in January 2016.
Maria Sharapova's ban was reduced to 15 months, after being handed a was initially handed a two-year suspension, for not being an "intentional doper".
Sharapova revealed details from her career and suspension in a Movistar+ documentary, named ‘The Point’.
"That morning (of March 7, 2016) I woke up and felt like I was preparing for a game. It is very hard to think that you have to face the world and say that you have screwed up everything," Sharapova said.
"After the press conference, I deleted all social networks from my phone, to protect myself, keep sanity and protect myself from opinions and judgments. I think I have never been concerned with what people think of me, but suddenly this happens and you see that you care what they know."
"And that disgusted me, it was a very unpleasant feeling," Sharapova added.
Sharapova thanked her parents for helping her through the suspension period.
"My mother told me that nothing would happen if I could never play tennis again. She spent weeks sleeping with me so that I was accompanied. My father also accompanied me a lot to make sure nothing went wrong, that he didn’t start blaming others," she said.
"You had to take control and know that you screwed up."
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