"Are we friends"- When Maria Sharapova revealed Serena Williams congratulating her on engagement just before Wimbledon match
Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams were fierce rivals during the mid-2000s and 2010s, with the latter leading 20-2 in the head-to-head.
Despite their rivalry, the two have a lot of mutual respect and Sharapova spoke of an incident when Serena congratulated her on her engagement to Slovenian basketball player Sasha Vujacic.
Speaking about her autobiography "Unstoppable. My Life So Far" with journalist Sway Calloway in 2017, the Russian said that her rival congratulated her just before she was about to play a match at Wimbledon, which made her wonder if they were friends.
"She congratulated me on my engagement by showing a ring of her own. I was like 'Wait a second, I'm about to play a match, are we friends'" Sharapova said.
The five-time Grand Slam champion also said that she worshiped the Williams sisters while they were practicing together in Florida.
"I personally started this rivalry from a young age witnessing and worshipping Serena and Venus practicing in this tennis academy in Florida as a 13-year-old girl with hundreds of kids next to me, and she was already a Grand Slam champion with her sister. The single thought that I had was that I wanted to be her and a few years later, I find myself, it was literally as if someone took me and put me into a television screen, facing Serena Williams in a final," she stated.
Speaking of the 2004 Wimbledon final, Maria Sharapova said that she did not belong there and that Serena Williams was strong and intimidating.
"I was someone who honestly did not belong there. I mean, I was not ready, I was not as tall as I got to be. I was far from being as strong or physically capable of competing two weeks but somehow I was there and I was facing her. She was intimidating, she was strong, her presence was there, her confidence, the confidence with which she was played for so many years," the Russian said.
"Deep down there is an incredible amount of respect that I have for Serena Williams" - Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova said that despite their rivalry, she has a lot of respect for Serena Williams.
"So much has been talked about it and I know that a lot of the headlines, a lot of the excerpts that were chosen from the book have been about Serena and rightfully so, because so much has been talked for years. But deep down, there is an incredible amount of respect that I have for her," the Russian stated.