GOODBYE TO TENNIS

FOR years she’s been the glamazon of women’s tennis: statuesque, formidable, icy and driven, with a piercing grunt that shattered on-court decibel records.

But now Maria Sharapova has called time on her long career. And she’s chosen to announce it on the glossy websites of Vogue and Vanity Fair, penning an intimate love letter to a sport that’s afforded her both fame and notoriety – as well as a vast fortune. “How do you leave behind the only life you’ve ever known?” she begins.

“How do you walk away from the courts you’ve trained on since you were a little girl, the game that you