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Maria Sharapova announced the birth of her first child on Friday with English businessman Alexander Gilkes.
Sharapova, 35, retired early in 2020 when she was just 32, citing increasing physical pain that became too much to ignore.
She won five slam titles between 2004 and 2014, securing a career Grand Slam in the process – although she has lived in the United States since moving there as a child.
In an interview with the New York Times after her retirement, Sharapova detailed her chronic shoulder injuries that have plagued her since she was 21 years old, as well as something called intersection syndrome in both forearms, which she described as “like shin splints in my forearms.”
In her Instagram post announcing the birth, Sharapova said her child, Theodore, is “the most beautiful, challenging, and rewarding gift our little family could ask for.”
