Sharapova: Calling off engagement was challenging

 

Originally published on: 01/09/12 00:00

Having denied a number of reports in recent months that she was to marry the basketball player before the end of the year, Sharapova revealed at the US Open that they had actually parted several months ago. She said she had never mentioned it before because nobody had asked her directly about it.

“It was obviously a challenging decision from both of our ends,” Sharapova said. “It was a really nice period of time for both of us, but our career schedules just made it extremely difficult to see each other with the travelling, and especially his career move to Turkey. The playing there was a little bit different in terms of he wasn't able to travel much. He wasn't home one time during the 10 months that he was in Turkey, so that made it extremely difficult. But we have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. Still would love to call him as a friend. We spent really great years together.”

As for not revealing the end of the relationship before, Sharapova said: “I have never really been the person to announce things. I never announced when we were together or never announced that we were engaged. I never have in any of my previous relationships, as well. It's not really the type of person that I am or the way I like to go about things. I'm not an announcer, you know. I don't go and do interviews about it or photo ops.”

Asked whether it was difficult to have a social life given all her other commitments, Sharapova said: “I make time for that. I’m able to have a normal life, which I’m pretty happy about, although when I’m at tournaments and I’m doing events and business-related things, it seems like my life is very hectic and very glamorous, very popular. But at the end of the day, when I’m home, I’m just like everybody else, although my office is my tennis court. I put those hours in. Then outside of it I have so many friends, my family, and I’m able to have a normal social life. I consider myself lucky.”

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