RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Maria Sharapova believes that she succeeded in a fight against injustice when she managed to get her doping ban reduced to 15 months.
The five-time Slam winner and former world No. 1 plans to return to competition next month at Stuttgart. She told a women's sports conference Tuesday that she didn't believe a two-year suspension was fair after she tested positive for meldonium at the 2016 Australian Open.
The Russian-born Sharapova said that although she's closer to the end of her career than the beginning, she didn't want to finish "on someone else's terms," and she "fought hard for the truth to be out."
Appearing beside Billy Jean King and Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman at a Rancho Mirage, California, conference entitled Inspiring Women in Sports, the five-time Grand Slam winner looked relaxed as she talked about her time away from the court.
"It gave me time to live. I went to Coachella last year, and I said, 'Wow, there are 120,000 people here doing drugs I haven't heard of.' This time away from the game made me realize I can live without the game," Sharapova said.
Sharapova, who has written an autobiography due to be published Sept. 12, talked about training for the U.S. Open last fall while her appeal was pending and understanding when the Court for Arbitration in Sport ruled that she could not return until April 26 that she needed to put her energies elsewhere.
"I realized I had a family I could spend months with at a time," the Russian Olympic silver medalist said.
She also talked about broadening her horizons by following NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for a week, taking a class at Harvard Business School and spending time with the designers at Nike, which pays her a $12.5 million annual endorsement income.
Sharapova, who is scheduled to make her return next month at the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany, also said she has discovered a newfound hunger for tennis. After admitting that she considered retiring from the sport last year, when "I felt like my body was starting to let me down," she added, "I'm skipping Coachella because I have a day job again ... I'm at a stage where you're closer to the end than the beginning. And you want to end on your voice, your terms."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.