"How would I tell the world I am firing Jimmy Connors after just one match" - When Maria Sharapova opened up on parting ways with celebrity coach
Maria Sharapova hired Jimmy Connors as her coach in 2013. However, the two worked together for just one match - at the 2013 Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati - before deciding to part ways. That one match saw Sharapova losing to USA's Sloane Stephens.
Sharapova wrote about firing Connors in her book 'Unstoppable'. She claimed that her defeat to Stephens in Cincinnati did not bother her as much as the realization that the partnership between herself and Connors did not have a future.
"I played Sloane Stephens in the first round. Jimmy sat in my player box wearing an ironed white button-down shirt. I lost in three sets. But nothing about the match, the way I played, or the result mattered to me. All I could think about was that this partnership had no future," Maria Sharapova wrote.
The Russian also stated that she thought long and hard about how to announce her decision to fire Jimmy Connors after just one match.
"How was I going to get out of it without hurting his feelings? How would I tell the world I am firing Jimmy Connors after just one match?"
For Sharapova, walking with Connors back to the locker room was particularly "painful" since the American kept encouraging her and insisting that they still had the US Open to look forward to.
"The walk back to the locker room was painful; the talk with Jimmy was even worse. He said I had played well. 'Don’t put your head down. It’s a long road ahead; we have the U.S. Open coming up'. Except it wasn’t. Not together, at least," Sharapova continued.
"I was quiet, just nodding to his post-match delivery. My first few words came out at the drive-through of a Wendy’s a half hour later. When all things are going wrong, there’s little that a spicy chicken sandwich can’t fix. Milk shake, fries, I ordered it all and finished it in the car way before we pulled up to the driveway of the house we were renting," she added.
Maria Sharapova won five Grand Slam singles titles in her career
Maria Sharapova had a glittering tennis career, winning 36 singles titles including five Grand Slams. She won each of the four Majors, triumphing twice at the French Open. The Russian tennis icon was the third-youngest female singles champion at Wimbledon, winning it in 2004 at the age of just 17.
Apart from her Major wins, Sharapova also won 14 WTA 1000 titles as well as the WTA Finals in 2004. The Russian retired from tennis in 2020, with that year's Australian Open being her final tournament. She lost 6-3, 6-4 to Donna Vekic in the opening round.