Maria Sharapova was one month into a professional career that would make her the world’s richest female athlete when a reporter from HBO’s Real Sports visiting Florida’s Bollettieri Tennis Academy asked whether she’d rather win Wimbledon or make $20m in endorsements.

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“I would choose to win Wimbledon,” the 13-year-old said, “because then the millions will come.”

The self-belief and steely determination and almost preternatural sense of composure underpinning that bold response, all qualities that have informed a decorated playing career that’s seen her become one of the highest earning and most popular sportswomen ever, were never more present than Monday’s shock news conference in downtown Los Angeles to announce the positive drug test that threatens to cast doubt over the entirety of her achievements.

The alert from Sharapova’s agent promised a “major announcement”, prompting wide speculation the Russian-born superstar was calling time on a 15-year career that’s included five grand slam titles – more than any other active player besides the Williams sisters – and hundreds of millions in prize money and endorsement deals with high-end brands including but not limited to Porsche, Evian, Avon and Tiffany. One of only 10 women to have won each of the sport’s four bedrock tournaments, she’d played only three events in eight months and, while still at seventh in the world rankings, seemed on her way out of the sport. Then she took the podium.

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The news itself was a far bigger surprise than her response to it: swift and professional with just enough tone-deafness to confirm there was a real person back there. By issuing her statement on Monday and fielding questions from the press, Sharapova got out in front of the story and wrested control of the narrative rather than passively waiting for the news to leak. And so far it’s worked. The reaction from within tennis has been largely sympathetic – with the conspicuous exception of Jennifer Capriati, whose first tweets in two months offered unsparing invective – and the feedback from the same public that devoured Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones has been oddly generous.

It’s just the sort of sophisticated, obsessive management by committee that makes the negligence at the crux of Sharapova’s story – that she received an email in December with a link detailing the updated banned substance list for 2016 but no one in her cadre of agents, coaches, managers and personal trainers apparently clicked it – so difficult to accept. It doesn’t help that other athletes have been caught after testing positive for the same substance over the past month, among them Ekaterina Bobrova and middle-distance runner Abeba Aregawi. Or that Russia’s anti-doping federation warned all Russian athletes of the new list back in September.

Far less binary are the ethical issues the episode raises. If you take a medicine or supplement that isn’t strictly banned but which makes you feel better on court and in general, is it wrong? Sharapova admitted on Monday to first having taken the drug a decade ago, one that the World Anti-Doping Agency has now banned after it was proven to enhance performance considerably, a timeframe that raises a concern over what medical reasons justify such long-term use.

That’s the question confronting the general public when asked to assess whether Sharapova’s achievements and reputation should be called into question.

You can’t help wonder how different the reaction would be if it were Serena Williams, the figure to whom her career is inextricably linked by virtue of a numbingly familiar rivalry that’s seen the world No1 win their last 18 matches over more than 11 years, an astonishing run that includes seven meetings at grand slams and three in major finals. The answer, which it doesn’t take a genius to hash out, strikes at the heart of white privilege.

Instead Sharapova, thanks in no small part to her media savvy and comportment under fire, will likely emerge from Monday’s announcement with her reputation dented but intact. Nike, the sporting-apparel multinational which recently offered two-times convicted drug cheat Justin Gatlin a new deal, has suspended ties but will no doubt be on board for the comeback tour. So passionate are her legion of fans that it’s hard to believe Monday’s bombshell cost her any.

Nonetheless, now a 28-year-old dogged by injury in recent years faces a lengthy suspension – a four-year ban if she is found to have taken meldonium intentionally to enhance performance, two years if unintentionally – and faces a pivotal turning point. Either she disappears from competition entirely or will dare to overcome it all. But on the all-important front of perception Sharapova showed Monday that she’s still game.