MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova announced on Wednesday her decision to wrap up with her sports career.

"Tennis - I’m saying goodbye," Sharapova wrote in her column of Vanity Fair monthly magazine.

Sharapova is Russia’s most decorated female tennis player having won a total of five Grand Slam tournaments, namely the Australian Open in 2008, the French Open in 2012 and 2014, Wimbledon in 2004 and the US Open in 2006.

She also clinched the silver in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and was the 2008 Federations Cup champion.

In March 2016, Sharapova announced that her doping sample tested positive for the banned performance enhancing drug, Meldonium. Following the announcement, former World’s No. 1 was provisionally suspended from all tennis-related activities, including from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil.

The tennis player was serving a two-year suspension for the violation of anti-doping regulations. However, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled later to reduce her suspension term to 15 months and Sharapova officially returned to playing tennis on April 26, 2017.

The Russian player skipped a vast part of the tennis season last year due to a shoulder injury and she stayed out of competitions from February to mid-June. Last August, she parted ways with her Swedish coach Thomas Hogstedt, who had trained her between 2011 and 2013 and with whom she resumed their training partnership in 2018.