Maria Sharapova retired from tennis in 2020. In 2016, she tested positive for a banned substance, and she served a doping suspension for a little more than a year. When she came back in 2017, she had brief moments of greatness followed by weeks or months of pretty terrible results. She never really “came back” to the heights she had previously reached. And those were pretty great: five majors titles, a career Grand Slam, an Olympic silver medal, dozens of WTA titles and she made it to #1 in the world. She also made tens of millions of dollars from very lucrative sponsorships.

Over the course of Pova’s career, she faced Serena Williams 22 times. Pova beat Serena twice in 2004 and then… never again. Serena beat her every single time they met on the court after 2004, making the head-to-head 20-2. That kind of lopsided rivalry is historic, really – even tennis’s Big Three (Nadal, Federer and Djokovic) never had those kinds of lopsided results over the course of fifteen years. Off the court, there was a lot of spice to Serena and Maria’s relationship. To be fair, I think people always wanted Maria and Serena to really hate each other, but they didn’t. They usually spoke respectfully of each other, although I still remember that particularly chaotic 2012-13 period where they were sniping at each other publicly.

You get the idea – people sort of assumed that there was no love lost between Pova and Serena for years. But after they retired, they really have been seeing each other more and hanging out, apparently. And then this happened: at Sharapova’s induction into the Tennis Hall of Fame, Serena came out as a surprise guest to speak about their rivalry and Maria in general.

As Serena said, Maria was the one who asked Serena to speak at the induction. Which I think is cool – if someone had kicked my ass 20 times, I would probably not speak to that person ever again. But as Serena says, their rivalry made them both better. Anyway, these two are kind of cute now. When Maria served her doping suspension, she wrote a memoir and she sort of manifested this, saying that she believed she and Serena would end up as friends once their careers were over. It came true. Also, in case you’re wondering – the Tennis Hall of Fame waits five years after a player retires to vote on whether they should be inducted. Meaning, Serena’s induction will (almost definitely) be in 2027, because she retired in 2022. I imagine that Venus will be the one to induct Serena? They definitely won’t ask Justine Henin (Serena still despises Henin).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.