"It wasn't like I had a famous boyfriend who made my career" - When Maria Sharapova explained why she didn't retire after career-threatening injury

Maria Sharapova once explained the reasoning behind her decision to return to professional tennis after suffering a major injury.

Sharapova was forced to cut her 2008 season short after hurting her shoulder and tearing her rotator cuff. She missed the Beijing Olympics, the US Open and the WTA Finals. Although the Russian attempted a comeback after undergoing surgery, she had to delay her return during the 2009 season, which resulted in her falling out of the top 100.

Despite spending 10 months on the sidelines, Maria Sharapova reached the quarterfinals of both the Warsaw Open and the French Open when she finally rejoined the tour. The former World No. 1 won the 2009 Pan Pacific Open, marking her first title since her return to the tour. She ultimately ended the year as the World No. 14, having climbed back up from a ranking of No. 126.

In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, Sharapova, a three-time Grand Slam champion at the time, said she had plenty of reasons to justify walking away from professional tennis amid her injury struggles.

"I had so many ways I could have got out," she said. "I had so many excuses I could have made that it would have been easy to walk away. I could have said that no one else in tennis has ever come back from a serious rotator-cuff injury to their shoulder. I could have said I've made enough money to last me the rest of my life. I could have said I've done this and done that."

However, the Russian highlighted that she and her family had built her career entirely from scratch, without the advantage of high-profile connections or a famous boyfriend to rely on. Sharapova said that while she could've stopped playing, she loved tennis too much to walk away from the sport.

"My family and I built my whole career from scratch," she added. "It wasn't like I had a famous boyfriend who made my career. I didn't have a magazine that made my career. So I could have chosen to stop playing because we did it ourselves. But I love the sport too much to wake up and say I no longer want to do it. I missed it. It got to the point where I would look at books and pictures of some great moments I had on court just to remember what it felt like."

Maria Sharapova began playing tennis at the age of four. At Martina Navratilova's urging, her father Yuri borrowed money so they could move to the United States, where she trained at Nick Bollettieri's academy in Florida.

"I didn't see my mom for two years" - Maria Sharapova on being separated from her mother while training in USA with her father

Maria Sharapova with her father Yuri - Source: Getty

While reflecting on the sacrifices her family had made for her career, Maria Sharapova opened up about how difficult it was to be separated from her mother Yelena while she was training in Florida.

The former World No. 1 also empathized with her mother, acknowledging how tough it must have been for her to live miles away from both her husband and daughter, with minimal communication to rely on.

"I didn't see my mom for two years," Sharapova said in the same interview. "Back then, there were no cell phones and, oh my goodness, no email! All I had was a pen and some paper, and so I wrote letters that would arrive back home a month later. I was young and happy. I was in Florida, in the sunshine, learning a new language and playing tennis. But it was very difficult for my mom to lose her husband and daughter."

Sharapova recalled that when her mother finally joined her in the United States, she delighted her by throwing out all of Anna Kournikova's hand-me-downs that the Russian was forced to wear.