The next few dozen hours went by in a delirium. It was the culmination of everything that we had worked for and planned. Victory really only lasts a moment, and then you are right back out on the practice court. But what a moment!
The morning after the final I went out to find a gown for the Wimbledon Ball. Winning Wimbledon changes everything—there’s no denying it. Every other time that I wanted to get a new dress in London, I had gone to my favorite store, looked through the collections, gone into the dressing room, and so on. But on this occasion, when I said that I wanted to head into the city to do some shopping, an official Wimbledon town car materialized at my front door. It carried me across the country and into the city like a magic carpet gliding over streets and rooftops. They were waiting for me in the showroom at Louis Vuitton. I was surrounded by salespeople who were waiting to help me in and out of the most gorgeous dresses you have ever seen. Red and gold and silver. I walked away with a unique cream double-figure dress with a pleated skirt underneath.
I was in the dress that night. I had dried my hair straight and wore barely any makeup because I had no clue what to do with makeup. I was nervous and shy and there were more cameras than I had ever seen. The flashbulbs hurt my eyes. I was seeing spots and wanted to get past all this and run inside. Official escorts stood at either side of the grand entrance. The doors opened and I floated in and continued to float all the way across the floor, following the same path that Serena had followed three years before. Back then I was watching, but now I was the player at the center of the action. The people in the room stood and began to applaud. A standing ovation. I went by the junior table, stealing a quick look at the girls I knew I’d have to defeat in the coming years if I wanted to stay in this perfect spot. The night flew by. It was a fantasy. All those gowns. All those colors. All that music and wine. It was 8:00 p.m. Then it was 2:00 a.m. I was back at the house, making my way up the stairs, shoes in hand, wanting nothing more than to tell my father about everything that had happened, all of it, but he was not there.
As important as winning Wimbledon had been for me, it had been, if anything, even more important for my father. He’d had his mind fixed on this goal ever since Yuri Yudkin first pulled him aside and spoke to him beside the courts in Sochi. Everything he had done, everything he had sacrificed, he had done and sacrificed to reach this moment. And here we were. Whatever came after this would be wonderful and terrific and everything, but, for my father, and, in a sense, for me, too, it would never be better. This was the destination, the true peak. What came later would just be our lives. This was a dream. And my father was going to celebrate it and mark it properly. He was not going to do that by going to a tea party or fancy ball. He would not do it by wearing a tux or dancing with a duchess. Nope. None of that bullshit. Yuri Sharapov wanted to celebrate in the old way, in the traditional way. He went out and got drunk. He stayed out until the night itself had been defeated. He went into a pub in the dark and did not come out till it was light, drunk and exultant. He woke me up when he finally got in. It was five in the morning, and he was carrying a tower of newspapers.
I sat up in bed. “What’s that?”
“The newspapers,” said Yuri, smiling. (I can’t remember if he was speaking in Russian or English.) “I went to that little shop on the corner. It wasn’t even open when I got there. I sat and waited. And waited. The goddamn sun was coming up! The guy who owns the place, he finally comes in with the keys. He’s stacking up the papers. I take a paper off the pile and, my God, Maria, you are on the front page! The front page! And I show it to the guy and I point to the picture and I ask him, because I am still not sure if this is real, I say, ‘Do you know who this is?’ And he smiles and says, ‘Of course, that’s Maria! She won on Saturday.’ Maria—even the newsagents know you by your first name! I said, ‘I am Maria’s father.’ And this guy, he was so excited for me, he starts going all around and gathering up every paper with your picture, and look at how many!”
He dropped the pile on the floor and began going through them. I went back to sleep, but he stayed up, reading all the articles in the living room. He later said that it was only by reading those articles, which had the statistics and the history and the fact that I was one of the youngest players to ever win Wimbledon, that he realized just what a big deal this win was. A few days later, he ran into Conchita Martínez somewhere. Martínez is a Spanish player and a former Wimbledon champion. She and my father got to talking about Wimbledon and she told him, “Yuri, your life is never going to be the same.”
I had been invited by Mayor Yury Luzhkov of Moscow to some sort of event in that city—the invitation came after I won the final. I’d already committed to something in New York, but my father offered to go in my place. The mayor sent a private jet. Yuri later told me the drinking resumed as soon as he took his seat on the plane. In other words, he marked my first big win the Russian way. Finally, completely exhausted, he met his brother in the mountains, where they had spent so many important days as kids. They hiked and talked and all of a sudden the whole thing finally seemed real to my father. Something about going back to the place where you started—you can see things more clearly there.
Meanwhile, I was also sensing life had changed. As I stepped out of the car at the airport, heading to New York for a promotion commitment, I was met by a crowd of reporters and photographers, paparazzi, the cameras going flash, flash, flash. People suddenly cared about me in a way that was cool, but also kinda creepy and disorienting. The reporters kept yelling, “Maria, Maria, Maria.” I, the rookie, was thinking, “Take it easy, guys, I’m two feet away from you.” It was the start of a new life—good and bad.
Losing. I know what losing does to you. I’d learned its lessons on tennis courts all over the world. It knocks you down but also builds you up. It teaches you humility and gives you strength. It makes you aware of your flaws, which you then must do your best to correct. In this way, it can actually make you better. You become a survivor. You learn that losing is not the end of the world. You learn that the great players are not those who don’t get knocked down—everyone gets knocked down—they are those who get up just one more time than they’ve been knocked down. Losing is the teacher of every champion. But winning? On this level? It was entirely new and I would have to learn its lessons, which can be devastating. In short, winning fucks you up. First of all, it brings all kinds of rewards, which, if seen from the proper perspective, reveal themselves for what they really are: distractions, traps, snares. Money, fame, opportunity. Each laurel and offer and ad and pitch takes you further from the game. It can turn your head. It can ruin you, which is why there are many great players who won just a single Grand Slam, then seemed to wander away. They simply lost themselves in the thicket of success. And then there is what winning does to your mind, which is even more dangerous. It completely distorts your expectations. You start to feel entitled. When you win Wimbledon, you expect to win Wimbledon every year.