One of Tennis’ longest and bitterest rivalries appears to have been swept under the red carpet at the glitzy post-US Open Met Gala in New York when Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova posed together for the cameras alongside sister Venus.
Their rivalry began in 2004 when a 17 year old Sharapova won her first Grand Slam beating Serena Williams in straight sets in the Wimbledon final.
A tearful Serena is alleged to have sworn in the locker room afterwards “I will never lose to that b***h again”
She wasn’t far wrong. By the time Sharapova announced her retirement in Vanity Fair and Vogue on 26 February 2020 Serena was 20 – 3 in head to heads.
She also held an unbeaten 19 match winning streak over Sharapova, the longest ever on the WTA tour culminating in a humiliating 6-1, 6-1 drubbing in the first round of the US Open in 2019 in less than an hour.
However there was intense rivalry off court too and Sharapova won that hands down when she wrestled the attentions of Bulgarian Tennis hunk Grigor Dimitrov away from love rival Serena.
Sharapova posted the photo to her 4 million Instagram followers showing there was no longer any bad blood on the Met Gala red carpet bash, hosted by tennis super fan Dame Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue.
There was much disbelief on Twitter as fans reacted with fake shock with comments like “When Hell freezes over” and “Somewhere Satan is wearing his fur coat and watching pigs glide through the air,” joked another.
“What’s next? Said one wag “[Nick] Kyrgios and Novak [Djokovic] having a holiday together?”
