"Maria Sharapova and I love seeing each other" - Serena Williams opens up on "different respect" for Russian, admits she has no regrets about rivalry
Serena Williams has spoken up about the mutual respect and admiration between herself and Maria Sharapova. The two retired former World No. 1 players seem to get along fine these days, but there was once a time when a healthy relationship between the two seemed most unlikely.
Williams and Sharapova faced each other on 22 occasions on the WTA Tour, with the former triumphing 20 times. Four of their meetings came at Grand Slam finals, but only one of them went the Russian's way.
Sharapova registered both her wins against Williams way back in 2004, with the very first of them coming in the final of that year's Wimbledon Championships; the match that propeled the Russian to international superstardom at the tender age of 17.
However, that's as good as it got for Sharapova in terms of getting the better of Williams, as the American would go on to rack up a staggering 19-match win streak against the Russian.
In Unstoppable: My Life So Far, Sharapova's 2017 memoir, the Russian wrote, that in her opinion, Williams could not digest being beaten by her in the 2004 Wimbledon final. According to Sharapova, this triggered something in the American, which led to the long win streak that followed until 2019, when they last met in the first round of the US Open.
"I think Serena hated me for being the skinny kid who beat her, against all odds, at Wimbledon," Sharapova had written.
Recently, Williams opened up about her present-day relationship with the Russian in an interview with Harper's Bazaar. The 23-time Grand Slam singles winner revealed that both of them enjoy each other's company whenever they bump into each other. Williams also remembered looking for the Russian at the 2024 Met Gala.
"We always love seeing each other. At the Met Gala, I literally was looking for her. I was like, “Where’s Maria? Where is she at?” I think she’s a super cool girl," Williams told Harper's Bazaar.
The former World No. 1 went on to state that she has no regrets over their lopsided rivalry, concluding with how much she respects the Russian nowadays.
"It’s not a shame, because I don’t regret it, but I think we both had to be incredibly competitive. And now that we’re in a different part of our life, I have so much respect for her. And obviously, I did when I was playing too. I had to gear up to win every single time, but it’s a different kind of respect now," Serena Williams added.
Serena Williams had seemingly taken a swipe at Maria Sharapova in 2020 over the Russian's tennis comeback following a doping suspension
During a conversation with former tennis players Chanda Rubin and Zina Garrison on the Game. Set. Chat! talk show in 2020, Serena Williams seemingly took a veiled dig at Sharapova over the Russian's return to the sport after serving a 15-month suspension (handed out in 2016) for meldonium, a banned substance. Williams said at the time that Sharapova should have received a harsher punishment.
"I don’t really care about my results on the court. For me, it’s stuff that – what is the purpose of your life? What is that? So that’s why, lot of the stuff really, genuinely doesn’t affect me. And turns out that when people actually are doing drugs, the truth comes out. And then they get banned for not long enough," Williams had said.
Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova have both called it quits on their respective illustrious tennis careers. The Russian was the first to announce her retirement, doing so in 2020. Williams retired two years later following her third-round exit at the 2022 US Open.
Both former World No. 1s are mothers now, with Serena Williams having two daughters while Maria Sharapova has a son, Theodore, who turned two earlier this month.