Sharapova’s brief encounter with leopard-skin undies

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MELBOURNE: Maria Sharapova had a brief encounter with a mystery pair of leopard-print undies on Saturday after a laundry mix-up at the Australian Open. In an unexpected snapshot of a tennis star’s life on the road, the Russian said laundry issues were not uncommon – although they don’t always involve leopard-patterned knickers.

“Yeah, I actually just returned a pair of underwear that wasn’t mine, like 45 minutes ago. Funny you ask that,” she said, after a question about laundry from a journalist. “I don’t know if you were like checking out the laundry room situation, but it really happened. It was a female pair of underwear, not male. It was leopard. I’m like, ‘That’s not mine’.”

The world number five said items of clothing often got mixed up when she was on the road. “It happens a lot. I’ve lost some great things in the laundry. I lost a great T-shirt in Brisbane 10 days ago,” she said.

Luckily for Sharapova, she is not one to get hung up on a piece of clothing. “Hopefully the individual wasn’t attached to their underwear. And I gave it back, so hopefully they’ll get it. Any more laundry situations I need to clear before we get on with our day?”

Sharapova will now hope to put the episode behind her and make a clean start in Melbourne, where she faces Japan’s Nao Hibino in the first round. — AFP