“Was always nervous” Maria Sharapova opens up about the pressure of competing at the Centre Court
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Maria Sharapova is only one of the ten women to hold a career Grand Slam. She is one of the most distinguished players to ever set foot on a tennis court. In an interview with Inc., the Russian spoke of her journey as a tennis player.
The five-time Major titles winner revealed how she navigated through the pressure she constantly dealt with. Further, she recalled Billie Jean King’s quote, “Pressure is a privilege.” Sharapova acknowledged, “it is a privilege to feel the pressure of your job, pressure of performing well.”
How Sharapova transformed the ‘tough experiences’ to her advantage
In addition, Sharapova spoke of her own experience of competing against the world’s best at the Centre Court. She stated how she “would always feel nervous” when starting out. Maria added, “I would always feel butterflies. I would always wanted to perform for myself, my team. You know, my entire team relied on me there…I wanted to do it for my fans.”
However, with time, the Russian started to perform even better due to the accumulated pressure. Also, Maria declared that these experiences which are ‘hard to get through,’ will ultimately make one stronger. She applied her obstacles on-court to her life off-the-court and deemed it helpful to relate the two.
“Experience that you face when you’re going through challenges, you’ll eventually experience them again in other ways in life. I always say that the way you go through those challenges will set you up for better experience next time,” she concluded.
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