IN CONVERSATION WITH MARIA SHARAPOVA

interview by JANA LETONJA & TIMI LETONJA

Numéro Netherlands presents one of our latest 11th issue cover:

MARIA SHARAPOVA, who brings a champion’s mentality to everything she does. Her accomplishments include five Grand Slam titles, singles victories at each of the four major titles, and an Olympic silver medal. Since retiring from tennis, SHARAPOVA has channelled her energy into becoming an active founder, CEO, investor, and being a mother.

You’re one of the most successful tennis players of our generation. How do you look back on your career, and how do you see tennis reshaping today with the new generation of players?

I’ll start by saying I was very fortunate to play for so long, so consistently. I think when you start a sport from a very young age, you’re so focused on getting better and practising and playing tournaments that you don’t have a clear understanding of what it means to shape the future of the sport. I remember meeting Billie Jean King for the first time when I was just a teenager. I was 13 or 14 years old, and I remember her coming up to me and saying, ‘I believe that you will do everything in your power to be a great tennis player, but never forget that the example that you set today on and off the court shapes the next generation.’

Her words continue to be powerful for how I think about showing up for my sport, for my teams, and for tennis. I was lucky that tennis chose me in many ways, and that I could learn so much and give so much to the sport – it shaped the course of my life.

You discovered your love for tennis at the age of six. How has it developed into a professional career from the first time you held a racket in your hands?

At heart, I loved competing. I loved the feeling of improvement. Sometimes you don’t recognise it at the moment, but the feeling of making progress is one of the best feelings in the world. I could train every day and every week, and I felt like I was seeing little improvements. Also with my team, you grow and you learn as a team. To be able to grow with it and become stronger was the greatest part of playing the sport, just to see constant evolution, learn from your mistakes and get direct feedback.

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coat MARC JACOBS

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dress LOUIS VUITTON
boots GIVENCHY

What were the biggest challenges you’ve faced during your career, and how have you maintained the positive mentality to overcome them?

As an athlete, especially in tennis, you end up losing a lot. You lose in front of the world. And so I think it helps shape how you accept losing and what you do with it. It’s hurtful in the moment because you put in so much work and you go into a match feeling prepared and confident. The reason they put the nets up in the morning is because your rank doesn’t matter. You still have to go out and beat the 200th best player across the net, or the number one player in the world. Every day is a new challenge and there are frustrations. At every practice, there’s usually something that you want to do better, and sometimes it doesn’t come right away. So that’s one of the best things about sport, even though it hits you really hard when it’s painful.

I think as you probably saw in the Netflix’s documentary BREAK POINT, there are moments that are quite dark. I think it painted a very clear picture of the emotions that a lot of players face because it’s constant direct feedback. I had expectations for myself and it didn’t work out, it’s also great because you mature very quickly. You learn how to accept and not care so much about what other people think, and lean into believing in yourself and making decisions for yourself.

The change of the course impacts a lot, right? Like grass and clay. That’s how we see it as outsiders, but how is it for you as a professional player?

The preparation is very different, both physically and mentally. The environment or weather conditions also vary. A night match in New York City, for example, is very different to a mid-morning match in London at Wimbledon. The thing about tennis is that you constantly have to adjust. You have to be prepared for constant change.

top GAURAV GUPTA
skirt PATOU

You are one of the only seven female players to win a career Grand Slam, having won at each of the major four titles. What does winning a career Grand Slam mean to a tennis player, and what did it mean to you at that moment?

That statistic means more to me now than it meant in the moment. When you’re in the moment, no matter which tournament you win, and no matter how big that tournament is, you always have to find new motivation to want to win it again and to want to remain at the top. And to be honest, you don’t really play for those stats. I certainly have reflected on how it is really cool to be able to say that I won on all surfaces – especially given that at the beginning of my career, many people (including myself) didn’t have much confidence in my ability to win at the French Open or to go far at the French Open against players who were better suited for that or grew up on clay. That was the challenge I needed to improve. Having all those four victories and to know that your name is on the board and on the trophy of each of those Grand Slams is a special fact on my resume.

Having won five Grand Slam titles and an Olympic silver medal, which win of them all had the biggest and deepest meaning for you, and why?

There were definitely notable matches. I’d say one of the toughest opponents I faced was Justine Henin because her game just didn’t match up well against mine, like on a good day for her. And I took that on as a challenge. I lost a really important match to her at the finals – I think it was the 2007 championship in Madrid. I remember everything about the match: what I was wearing, the skirt, the top, how I was feeling. I was deep into a two-hour-long match, probably almost three. I was very close to beating her, and I ended up losing. That feeling at the end of the match – especially after a final – when you see your opponent hold the trophy and celebrate with her team is hard. There’s no other way to say it, except it’s just really disappointing. And even though I lost that match, I felt like it was a pivotal moment in my career. Particularly with her, because I knew that I would be playing against her for many more years.

I still think that was one of my best off seasons because I was motivated by that match. I barely took any vacation time, maybe a few days, and I was so eager to get back on the court because Australia was right around the corner. I ended up playing in the quarter-final just a few months later in 2008 and I was on autopilot. It was one of those matches where you just feel like things are going your way– it just feels smooth.

coat KILIAN KERNER
skirt ANAMIKA KHANNA
shoes PATOU

In recent years, we’ve seen fashion become a huge part of big sports events, also in tennis. How do you think of fashion at the Grand Slam events lately, and what were some of your favourite outfits you wore playing tennis over the years?

Tennis is one of those sports where you can be more creative with what you wear on court. I was able to take full advantage of that because I had a long relationship with NIKE. I trusted the brand, and I definitely had an opinion on what I wore. I wanted to feel like a version of myself that was confident and elegant, that was more about silhouette than layers or colours. I wanted to stand out in the small details as opposed to being loud in the choices I made. NIKE was so supportive of that.

I believe I was the first player to have a specific custom dress for the night match at the US Open. And it happened to be the dress I wore when I won that year, 2006. There was actually a design from NIKE for that dress. It was designed by NATALIE CANDRIAN. When I saw the sketch, I knew immediately it was perfect because it had the vibes of Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She was such a fashion inspiration. The dress was everything that I wanted to portray on the centre court in New York. Then there was a tuxedo look that I wore at Wimbledon, which at the time I think was quite risky, because not many women wore shorts, particularly at Wimbledon. But it felt like a good risk.

At the Miami tournament, I wore what looked like a corset. It was a time when NIKE was starting to work with dancers and towards pieces that were maybe for different purposes, not just running or tennis. And I love that. My mom was a dancer recreationally– I love going to ballet and to dance, and I love classical music, so it was a really nice play on that.

In 2023, you’ve become a Global Wellness Ambassador for AMAN – the most refined group for wellness and hospitality in the world. In this role, how do you bring your unique perspective to AMAN’s world-leading restorative spaces?

I have been interested in fitness and wellness for so long, but especially since retirement, because I get to see a different side of taking care of your body and the needs and the time that we all have for health. That includes what you do for mental wellness, and what you do to stay in shape. One of the things that I thought was really interesting during my career was how I would curate teams of some of the best people in the world who knew their subject so well. I’ve known the team at AMAN for several years, so when we decided to collaborate together, I said I could curate a selection of practitioners (including myself) where we would spend four days together. From the day that we wake to when we go to sleep, we would focus on performance and mindset, but through the lens of breathwork, meditation, workouts, hot and cold therapy, a little bit of tennis and movement with some of the leading experts in the world. I feel like I have the experience in that space, so it made a lot of sense.

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coat ENTIRE STUDIOS
boots GIVENCHY

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full look SCHIAPARELLI

This September, you’ve hosted a wellness retreat at Amanzoe in Greece, which focuses on building mental resilience. How did you approach setting up the transformational three-day programme, and what is your advice to those building their own mental resilience?

I think the idea of showing up to a place that’s so beautiful, in an environment where you’re immediately inspired to just move and to feel, gives you the time to really work on your body and on yourself. We’ve put together an exceptional programme with someone I worked with in New York for breathwork and meditation. I’ve also worked with a tennis coach who helped me win the French Open many years ago. A lot of people who I’ve worked with in the past were part of this, but essentially, all of AMAN’s clients are high performance and while they are not necessarily athletes, they are athletes in their own minds. They’re very competitive, they want to be the best in the world. And so setting time for themselves to train their bodies and minds is the goal of the programme.

How has motherhood changed your life and your priorities, and what are the most important values you’d like to uphold in your son’s life?

Motherhood has become the foundation of my family and my life post career. Anytime I leave home now, there has to be a really good reason because I have something really important at home. Something that takes time and discipline, and honestly, a lot of patience to nurture. It’s been really fun. I feel like I have a great relationship with my parents, but when you have your own child, you learn as you go. So even though you feel like you know a lot about those attributes I just spoke about, you’re constantly surprised.

Kids are constantly changing. The first seven or eight years of their life, they’re just developing in front of your eyes. I’m trying to be as present with him as I can. It’s a great gift. It’s challenging in many ways, but – as you can tell from my career – I love challenges. I have to say I have so much respect for single parents, for caregivers.

Keeping busy with your business and family life, what exciting projects are you working on next that you can share with us?

To go back to my own experience in my career, I was so focused on being an athlete, but I was also interested in other aspects of life, like design, fashion, and business. I was really lucky because in a way, I was curious. I wasn’t afraid to ask people from different walks of life to have a meeting, to see how they work, whether they were an artist or a cook or someone else. It was about what can I learn from them to expand my mind and curiosity?

We just announced my partnership with a Swedish mattress bed company called HÄSTENS. We came together with them and the program is focused on sleep and how sleep impacts performance. It’s centred around a collective of six young individuals, including a female race car driver, a young chef in New York, an artist, and a producer. The purpose is to network between each other. In a way, I’m running and mentoring this program, but essentially I want to make sure that there’s a thread among the things that they do, so that they can grow and take examples from each other, and help each other in their young careers, with sleep being the anchor.

TEAM CREDITS:
talent MARIA SHARAPOVA
photography AGATA SERGE
styling CAROLINA ORRICO
makeup KARA YOSHIMOTO at A-FRAME AGENCY
hair ADIR ABERGEL at A-FRAME AGENCY
styling assistant BROOKE DODDERIDGE
photography assistant AARON ALPERT
producer JEAN JARVIS at AREA1202
on set producer MICHELLE KAPUCINSKA
location SUNBEAM STUDIO
lab ART LAB WARSAW
prints TOMASZ ORLOWSKI
editor & casting TIMOTEJ LETONJA
interview JANA LETONJA & TIMI LETONJA
cover design ARTHUR ROELOFFZEN