You often hear the pros bemoan how long their season is and how they need a longer break. But how do they spend their precious time off in late November and early December, before they have to prepare for the Australian Open? For Maria Sharapova, the “off-season” was spent relaxing at the Four Seasons resort in Costa Rica.
“There aren’t too many times in a year when I can wake up and have no sense of what time it is,” Sharapova says.
“My typical day in Costa Rica?” Sharapova continues. “Wake up, open the blinds and the windows, go back to bed. Wake up again, take a golf-cart ride to breakfast, eat a breakfast burrito, then decide if we want to lie out by the pool or the beach. Decisions, decisions! I also hit the spa before ‘recovering’ back at my room.”
Located at Peninsula Papagayo in the province of Guanacaste, the Four Seasons offered the world’s No. 1 plenty of the usual amenities, but also some cool activities you don’t find at your typical resort, including jungle swinging—or the canopy tour zip line. It’s where you harness yourself to a series of wires secured high in a canopy of trees and zip through the forest.
“At one point, we were 400 meters in the air,” Sharapova says, “going 40 miles per hour on a skinny rope. It was amazing.”
For more behind the scenes info on Maria’s trip, including her own pictures, pick up the latest issue of SMASH magazine.