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Why Maria Sharapova rethought her rivalry with Serena Williams | ReThinking

Maria Sharapova is one of only 10 women to complete a Career Grand Slam in tennis, and was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2025. After retiring in 2020, she has also become a mother, an investor, and podcast host. In this episode, Adam talks with Maria about resilience, motivation, and the evolution of her rivalry with Serena Williams. Maria reflects on the moments in her career that forced her to take a step back and rethink her mindset, from hard losses and wisdom from coaches to relationships with her peers and opponents. Adam offers insight on two different kinds of winning in psychology, and why sports aren’t really as zero-sum as they seem. Follow our podcasts! ReThinking with Adam Grant: https://link.mgln.ai/kdYcyx The TED Podcasts is a collection of podcasts for the curious. The TED Podcasts videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organiz...). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com.

Maria SharapovaguestAdam Granthost
Aug 13, 202635mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Sharapova on resilience, winning, coaching, and reconciling with Serena Williams

  1. Sharapova describes resilience as a daily practice of controlling reactions, composure, and attention amid constant errors and momentum swings in tennis.
  2. She explains how her motivation evolved from single-minded victory to valuing performance quality—while still prioritizing winning when stakes are highest.
  3. Sharapova argues great coaching is as much about boundaries and honest “no’s” as technical improvement, especially amid fame and competing commitments.
  4. She reinterprets her long rivalry with Serena Williams as grounded in shared backgrounds and mutual respect, culminating in a public moment of reconciliation at the Hall of Fame.
  5. Grant and Sharapova discuss how sports can foster zero-sum thinking, and how maturity (and business) can reveal positive-sum dynamics where others’ success can expand opportunities for all.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Resilience often means managing your response, not preventing setbacks.

Sharapova frames tennis errors and crowd disruptions as inevitable; the controllable variable is composure, body language, and the next-point focus—skills she now applies in motherhood.

At the highest levels, you can lose a lot and still be great.

Reacting to Federer’s “54% of points” idea, she emphasizes that tennis rewards timing and execution in key moments, not perfect point-by-point dominance.

Performance focus can grow with experience, but outcome pressure never fully disappears.

She learned to value competing well (e.g., “planting seeds” of doubt even when losing a game), yet admits that in Grand Slams she still wouldn’t choose “play great and lose” over winning.

Great coaches protect the goal by saying no to tempting distractions.

Sharapova highlights boundary-setting—turning down high-profile events mid-season—as a core coaching function requiring trust and candor, not people-pleasing.

Consistency is an achievement in itself in year-round individual sports.

She’s proudest of sustaining elite performance across relentless travel and tournament cycles, where even major milestones leave little time to reflect before the next event.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Resilience was a, a huge daily component of, of my life as an athlete. You start to learn that focus on things that you can control.

— Maria Sharapova

The only thing that matters is who wins when you shake hands.

— Maria Sharapova

You have to forget about winning, which is so hard as an athlete to forget about winning, 'cause every single day you're training to win.

— Maria Sharapova

When I got, um, inducted into the Hall of Fame... the first person I thought of was Serena. I knew it would, it would shock everyone. I knew that the moment would be impactful if she was by my side.

— Maria Sharapova

Her fame will only make you bigger and better and will only make you bigger deals.

— Maria Sharapova

Resilience and emotional controlTennis as attention training and distraction from lifeMastery vs victory motivationCoaching: care, honesty, boundaries, prioritizationConsistency and the nonstop pro scheduleRivalry, similarity, and reconciling with Serena WilliamsIdentity beyond sport and gendered backlash to multidomain success

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