(CNN)Within an hour and eighteen minutes, Maria Sharapova’s life would change forever.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in July 2004, she walked onto Wimbledon’s Center Court as an unknown 17-year-old, leaving a familiar name behind.
The precocious Russian teenager with the contagious, cheerful smile had beaten world No. 1 and reigning champion Serena Williams.
With this win in the final, Sharapova became the third youngest woman in history to be crowned champion at the All England Club.
“I remember a moment with my coach after I won a quarterfinal at that Wimbledon,” Sharapova tells CNN’s Don Riddell as she reflects on her winning run to a first Grand Slam title.
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“I ate my meal after the game and a lot of people came up to me and said ‘congratulations’ and wanted to take a picture – people I’ve never met in my life.
“I just noticed this wave (of people) and so did my coach,” added Sharapova, referring to Mauricio Hadad. “He immediately came up to me and almost whispered in my ear.
“Okay, things are changing,” she vividly recalls as he told her. “You’ve changed from that moment. You’re a semi-finalist at Wimbledon. You’re 17 years old. You’ve got to put those horse scrubs on.”
Sharapova describes this victory as a defining moment in her career.
The endorsements and sponsorship deals started pouring in, fueling the “Sharapova brand.”
That Sharapova had so much to gain from a single win only emphasized the opposite for her defeated opponent.
“Look, I think Serena had everything to lose compared to me in that particular match,” she says. “I mean, I was the underdog. If I lost this match I would be the happiest kid on the planet.
“Wimbledon finalist? Who would have thought it? Nobody expected that from me. She’s a two-time defending champion, there’s a lot more at stake and I think I felt that.
“It didn’t scare me, it just wanted me to win more.”
As the Grand Slam tournaments drag on and the number of players dwindles, the locker room becomes a quiet, empty place.
“You feel like you’re the only two people on the planet,” Sharapova says, reliving that private moment. “You share many moments with them.
“It’s like you’re so connected yet so distant because they’re your competitors.”
In her book, Sharapova clearly describes hearing Williams sob in the dressing room after the final.
Intruding into these most personal and painful of moments is something Sharapova believes Williams has never forgiven her for.
“Obviously it was a disappointing loss for her because she was expected to win,” she says. “I’m sure she expected to win this match, another Wimbledon final.
“So I think that disappointment really stirred something up. She didn’t want to lose to me again.”
Although that day belonged to Sharapova, their neck-and-neck race is grim reading for the Russian. She hasn’t tasted a win against Williams since 2004 – a 13-year, 18-game streak.
“Well, I say she owned me,” the 30-year-old bluntly admits. “What she has.”
Hidden in the shed
Just a few years earlier, Sharapova recalls she first saw Serena — and her sister Venus — while attending the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida.
The coaches suspended classes so the students could watch the Williams sisters practice for the few days they were there.
Sharapova’s father insisted that she also go “to see these incredible athletes,” she recalls telling her.
“I want you to watch and I want you to just look them in the eye to see the desire and passion to see them play the game,” was Yuri Sharapova’s advice.
Not wanting to give the sisters the “satisfaction” of seeing them in the stands, Sharapova found an unconventional hiding spot from which to watch.
“Okay, there’s a woodshed behind the courthouse,” she explains. “It was like a video shed where they do video analytics.
“And so I walked into this shed and I was like I was peering through this little hole and I just saw years of my life ahead of me.
“They were already Grand Slam champions back then and just a few years later it really was like someone put me on a TV screen and put me against Serena Williams.”
Arrival in America
Eleven years before Sharapova was crowned Wimbledon champion, she landed at a Florida airport with her father with just $700 in the couple’s bank account.
Her mother Yelena had planned to join them but was not allowed due to visa restrictions. It would be two years before they would meet again.
Yuri had planned for someone to pick her up from the airport, but that person never came.
Barely speaking a word of English to each other, they were stranded in a new country in the middle of the night with nowhere to go.
Sharapova is all too aware that without fate, luck, or the kindness of strangers, her story could have been very different.
“It’s 2:00 in the morning and nobody’s there and where are you going?” She says. “What are you doing? Who are you calling? And then you bump into a couple on the plane who take you to their hotel room,” she recalls.
“In the end you stay down to earth and just these experiences, like, who were the saviors? Who? When we’re young we always say ‘stay away from strangers’, but it was the strangers who really helped us get where we are today.”
Throughout her career, Sharapova has portrayed herself as an outsider, as if against the world.
She believes this back-to-the-wall approach stems from her days bouncing around tennis academy dormitories, always being an outsider and never quite fitting in.
“I was with kids who were a lot older than me, who had completely different interests, who stayed up late, who didn’t take their sport as seriously as I did,” she recalls.
“So I think maybe we’re on different target career paths and I realized that at a young age. And I think part of that isolated me.
“It became a habit and repeated so many times I didn’t even notice, but it was absolutely lonely at the time.”
drug ban
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On March 7, 2016, Sharapova called an impromptu press conference to announce that she had failed a drug test.
The banned substance meldonium – an over-the-counter heart drug commonly used in former Soviet Union countries – had been found in a mandatory test she took after her Australian Open quarterfinal loss to Serena Williams.
Although Sharapova took “full responsibility” for taking the drug at the time, to this day she vehemently denies knowingly ingesting a banned substance that would enhance athletic performance.
Sharapova originally prescribed Meldonium in 2006 “as both a cardioprotective agent and a preventative against diabetes,” Sharapova claimed she was unaware that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) discontinued the drug on 1, 2016 – 18 days before the start of the Australian Open.
“It was shocking,” she said, describing her emotions upon hearing about the failed test.
“It was surprising. There were a lot of emotions. So much uncertainty, I think. That was the hardest feeling to deal with.”
However, questions remain about the legitimacy of Sharapova’s defense.
How could no one in their team of agents, doctors, nutritionists, lawyers and consultants fail to notice the addition of Meldonium to the Banned Substances List?
As the last sentence of the independent tribunal investigating the case read: “She is the sole author of her own misfortune.”
Many of the Tour’s leaders, most notably Eugenie Bouchard and Caroline Wozniaki, have vocally condemned Sharapova’s return to the circuit and the wildcards she has received.
However, Sharapova remains unimpressed by the criticism.
“I think if the reaction came from facts, I would consider it,” she explains.
“But if the reactions are just personal opinion or things that aren’t based on fact, I don’t have time to think about it.”
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retirement
Sharapova is adamant she never believed drug ban would end her career, although she admits it was “scary” not knowing how long ban would last.
Despite the ban cutting off her career by 15 months, the five-time Grand Slam winner believes it has breathed new life into her.
Before her positive test, she admitted she was seriously contemplating that 2016 would be her final year in the pro circuit.
After suffering multiple shoulder injuries and undergoing surgery in her early twenties, Sharapova wasn’t sure her body could handle the rigors of the tour, let alone her desire to continue playing.
“Six days a week, doing this grind for hours,” she says. “Competing in 18, 19 tournaments a year and doing it over and over again.
“You know, it’s a combination of things that gets you high, whether it’s rank or high position, and all of those things have to come together.
“I always knew I was passionate about the sport, but I just felt like one day I just want to sit on the couch. And I don’t know, sitting on the couch is getting pretty boring.”
Sharapova says she would like to end her career on her “own terms” but doesn’t yet know what that means.
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“I don’t know if it’s a Grand Slam, I don’t know if it’s another win, I don’t know if it’s a personal win. I don’t know,” she says.
“I think we know so many things. We know the planning, we know events, but all I know are things I’ve accomplished. i know all these things I know what I’m capable of. I know how much I want to have.
“And I still feel like I have a lot to bring.”
The headline of this story has been updated with an additional quote from Maria Sharapova, making it clear that the coach she is talking about at Wimbledon in 2004 was Mauricio Hadad.
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