I’m not a Maria Sharapova fan. I’ll just say that at the onset. I haven’t missed Sharapova in the past year, during which she was banned for testing positive for a banned substance, meldonium. Sharapova had been taking meldonium for years, but as of January 2016, it was put on the banned list and Sharapova didn’t read the updated banned-substances list as thoroughly as she needed to, or at least that was her excuse. She was supposed to be banned from professional tennis for two years, but her sentence was later appealed and brought down to 16 months. That means Sharapova – who turns 30 in April – will be able to play some tournaments in the clay-court season. She’s already scheduled to play Stuttgart and the French Open.

So, to celebrate her return, Maria granted an interview to Vogue in what she probably hopes will be the first part of her rehabilitation – the rehabing of her image, that is. The thing is… even thought Vogue wants to paint Sharapova’s return as some grand portrait of struggle over adversity, I just don’t think anyone missed her and I don’t think anyone is truly looking forward to her return. Except for the advertisers, maybe. That’s pretty clear: Sharapova was, at the time of her banning, the highest-paid female athlete in the world. Nevermind that Serena Williams is arguably the most dominant female athlete of all time, Maria was always the highest-paid when it came to endorsements. Because she’s pretty and blonde. And all of Sharapova’s endorsements are coming back this year. Who cares about doping when there’s a pretty blonde on court, right? Anyway, you can read the full Vogue piece here. Some highlights:

Her 15 months off the court: “This past year, my intake of alcohol was so much more than ever in my life. But it was because I actually had a social life!”

Tennis is not her religion: “I think I’d go crazy if I was only a tennis player. Seriously.”

She doesn’t have friends on the tour. “I spend as little time in the locker room as I can get away with, because I’ve set up another life. I have family, I have friends. And the less time I spend there, the more energy I have for them. I’m respected for what I do on the court, and that’s much more meaningful to me than someone saying that I’m a nice girl in a locker room.”

These are the people contacted for the Vogue piece but wouldn’t go on the record to writer Jonathan Van Meter: “Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Mary Carillo, and Pam Shriver all declined to talk to me about Sharapova.”

On her meldonium usage: “I had been taking it for ten years and for about seven of those years I had gotten a written certificate from a WADA-accredited lab that all the substances I was taking were totally fine for me to take. I just became completely comfortable that they were fine. That’s the mistake I made: being too comfortable.”

Whether she believes she’ll still have a cloud of suspicion over her head: “I think if I was trying to hide something, I don’t think I would come out to the world and say I was taking a drug for ten years. If I was really trying to take the easy way out, that’s not a very smart thing to do… But the answer to your question is, absolutely.”

Whether she ever talks to her Russian family about politics & the election: “Not at all; we never discuss politics. I carry such a big part of my country in my soul. When I host people at home, I think of my grandmother’s afternoon tea. I remember being around books—Tolstoy, Pushkin, my mother reciting poetry. That’s the piece of Russia that I have in me.”

Her rivalry with Serena Williams: “We’re not celebrated as two women with completely different backgrounds who have created incredible opportunities for ourselves and our families. Instead we are ranked against each other for our differences, our game, our earnings. I think the concept of lists and the amount that players make is bollocks. It would be so easy when you’ve gone through injuries and setbacks to just let it all go. But to have that desire still? The amount of respect that I have for her as an athlete is enormous.”

Breaking off her engagement with Grigor Dimitrov: She has been pretty much single since she and Dimitrov broke up. It did not end well. But one night a couple of months ago she ran into him in New York City. They hadn’t seen each other since the summer of 2015. “We closed down a restaurant after talking for five hours,” she says. “He was such an important part of my life, and he’s a very delicate, complicated person. It was so nice to just be normal human beings.”

She believes she’s well-liked by fans: “Ever since all this happened, I’ve had so many strangers actually come up to me. Like chefs coming out of the kitchen, or pilots come out of the cockpit to say something. It is so heartening. I’ve had tunnel vision about my career, and I don’t think I ever realized the effect I’ve had on people. That has blown my mind.”

[From Vogue]

What speaks volumes to me is that it’s mostly left up to Sharapova to tell Jonathan Van Meter about how much people have missed her and how the fans are really looking forward to seeing her. Like, Chrissy Evert isn’t saying that. Martina isn’t saying that. Billie Jean isn’t saying that. No one on the WTA tour is saying that. They could only really get Paul Annacone – who is Roger Federer’s former coach – to say that yeah, people missed Sharapova and those people are mostly advertisers. I understand that, sort of – Sharapova is a known quantity and I guess advertisers would rather rebuild their relationship with her as opposed to developing relationships with truly inspiring younger players like Garbine Muguruza (who is ADORABLE), Karolina Pliskova (who is utterly charming) or Monica Puig (Olympic gold and she’s very pretty). So, yeah… Sharapova’s back. But for how long? How far will she go in the French? I bet she doesn’t even make it to the fourth round.

Photos courtesy of WENN.