Maria Sharapova began her 2014 campaign with the very real threat of falling out of the Top 10 for the first time in years—and she knew it. Now she's back at No. 2 and knocked on Serena Williams' penthouse door ahead of the WTA Finals in Singapore before ultimately bowing out of the season-ending event after its round-robin phase. Despite the temporary setback, she seems eager for the 2015 season already.
Newness becomes her. If you think about it, she's never been stagnant. She has moved among injuries and titles, coaches and paramours, sponsors and exploits, with relative ease and grace, always. The impending off-season will be good for her. But as Sharapova has shown in 2014, she is the embodiment of those crystallized lyrics from the great thinker Chumbawumba: "I get knocked down, but I get up again/ You're never going to keep me down."
Sporting a shiny new ring recently, she alternately plays up and plays down rumors of an engagement to Grigor Dimitrov. Maybe that knack for becoming a phoenix in so many situations can rub off all the more on one close to her.