Sharapova retired.
When Kobe bid farewell to his basketball career, he faced the audience and said: Mamba out. When Sharapova bid farewell to her tennis career, all her reluctance/sentiment also turned into just one sentence: Tennis, I want to say goodbye.
Only the person involved knows the sadness and regret.
I always think, if Kobe had not ruptured his Achilles tendon in 2013, maybe today, we can still see him performing stubborn jump shots again and again on the court; I sometimes also think, if Shasha Rapova did not experience the suspension in 2016. Will her career last longer?
In the past ten years or so, Sharapova has always been one of the most dazzling stars active in women's tennis.
Won five Grand Slams in his career, including: 2004 Wimbledon Championship, 2006 US Open Championship, 2008 Australian Open Championship, 2012 and 2014 French Open Champion, successfully achieved the Grand Slam.
When talking about Sharapova, the first thing that many fans think of is not her skills that once dominated the battlefield, but her unforgettable beauty.
The world's top-earning female athlete.
Time is the natural enemy of competitive sports. Kobe is no exception to this, and Sharapova is no exception.
After winning her last Grand Slam in 2014, Sharapova’s condition plummeted. During the competition, she began to feel more and more inadequate. She discovered a terrible thing. Her training was not good enough. Reduced, his skills have not declined, but his physical strength has become worse and worse.
That year, after Kobe announced that he would be completely canceled for the new season, fans around the world finally believed that the Lakers had officially withdrawn from the playoffs. From that year onwards, Sharapova's name was no longer seen among the four Grand Slam contenders.
In the 2016 ban scandal, the International Tennis Federation banned her for two years (Sharapova’s own reply was: accidentally ingesting a banned drug).
Although the suspension was later reduced to 15 months, Sharapova was no longer in form after her comeback.
All fans know that not being exposed to professional leagues for 15 months is a big blow to a top professional athlete.
In October 2017, Sharapova won the last championship of her career - the Tianjin Open.
In 2019, Sharapova played with an injury to her right shoulder. , only played 15 games throughout the year, with a record of only 8 wins and 7 losses. At that time, Sharapova had the idea of ??"should I retire" for the first time in her mind.
Once such thoughts appear, they will continue to spread.
This year, Sharapova is ranked 373rd in the International Women’s Tennis Association rankings. How can such a proud athlete endure being eliminated in the first round again and again, and losing again and again to a team she once easily defeated? In the opponent's hands?
Sharapova wants to retire, but she can't let go of tennis.
He originally made an agreement with Kobe to meet on January 30. Unfortunately, Kobe could no longer attend the appointment due to an accident.
Perhaps she wanted to ask Kobe: When you entered the last years of your career and were challenged by young people, what kind of mentality did you have to persevere? She also wanted to ask herself whether I, who was once the best in the world and won the world championship, can still make a living now that I am old.
Sharapova said that Kobe’s death was a huge blow to him. Only in these fragile moments did she understand that there are many more important things in life, so why bother to stick to this.
A month later, Sharapova announced her retirement.
I don’t know what her state of mind was when she announced her retirement. I think she might have had regrets or maybe she was relaxed.
It’s a pity that she couldn’t dance to 60 points in the last dance like Kobe. What was relaxing was that Sharapova took one last look at her ranking of 373rd and smiled slightly. Guan, I'll leave it to you to fight for it. I have already won the honor and the victory that I deserve.