‘Banged Me on the Shoulder’- Maria Sharapova’s Peak Jealousy Moment on Arch-Rival Serena Williams As She Bared It All in an Intimate 2017 Book

The equation between the Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova and the American tennis Legend Serena Williams has definitely changed with the passage of time. There was a time when the five-time Grand Slam champion’s body and soul hated the 23-time Grand Slam champion.

The Russian star, before turning professional, made up her mind to defeat the tennis legend one day on the tennis court. However, among their various 22-on-court meetings, the Russian player has merely won two matches against her.

In her book, the Russian tennis player shared her moment of jealousy against arch-rival Serena Williams when she was very young.

Maria Sharapova opened up about her animosity toward Serena Williams

During her training period, the former world number one was getting ready to enter the tennis world. The 35-year-old tennis player in her autobiography, Unstoppable: My life so far, which was released in 2017, talked about the time she watched a Serena Williams match from the stands in the early 2000s.

She explained what Williams’ entry looked like back in the early 2000s.

Sharapova wrote, “She squeezed every bit of glory out of her grand entrance, head held high, shoulders back, beaming. Cheers and cheers and cheers. People started getting to their feet. The girl next to me, whoever that was—I can’t remember—banged me on the shoulder and said, “Get up! Get up! It’s Serena Williams!.” 

The 23-time Grand Slam Champion  got a massive standing ovation that rubbed off Sharapova in a wrong way. Her ego was hurt.  It stopped the format tennis player to cheer her future archrival at that time.

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She said, “I wanted to get up, but my body just would not let me. It was as if I were stuck in that chair, staring at Serena through the crowd of people.”

Nevertheless, she also experienced a similar feeling when the Williams sisters joined Nick Bollettieri tennis academy where she was already training to become a tennis player.

What happened when Sharapova saw Williams at the training academy?

While almost every person at the tennis academy was ready to see the Williams sisters’ in action on the tennis court , Sharapova did not want to be part of that crowd. And she wanted to desperately defeat them on the tennis court.

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Notably, when the legendary tennis duo arrived in the same tennis academy, the Russian tennis player founder  a clever way to watch them play . She saw them through a knothole in a shed which was situated close to the tennis court they practiced in. Additionally, the Russian tennis player got her first opportunity to defeat the youngest William sisters in 2004. Sharapova’s plan to defeat her came true at last, and  the Russian tennis won her first Grand Slam title.