Maria Sharapova

Biography

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (Russian: Мария Юрьевна Шарапова, romanized: Mariya Yuryevna Sharapova, pronounced [mɐˈrʲijə ʂɐˈrapəvə] ; born April 19, 1987) is a former Russian professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 21 weeks. Sharapova won 36 WTA Tour-level singles titles, including five major titles, as well as the 2004 WTA Tour Championships. She is one of ten women to achieve the career Grand Slam in singles. A teen sensation, Sharapova broke through to the top of the sport by winning the 2004 Wimbledon Championships as a 17-year-old, upsetting two-time defending champion Serena Williams. She then won the 2004 Tour Finals, and became the world No. 1 for the first time in August 2005 at the age of 18, the first Russian woman to top the singles rankings. Continued success over the following years, including titles at the 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open, was accompanied by recurring injuries, and Sharapova dipped in and out of the top 10 around the turn of the decade. After a career-long struggle with success on clay courts, Sharapova claimed the 2012 French Open to complete the career Grand Slam, returning to the No. 1 position, and shortly after won an Olympic silver medal in women's singles at the 2012 London Olympics. She won a second French Open title in 2014 for her fifth major championship. Sharapova failed a drug test at the 2016 Australian Open, testing positive for meldonium, a substance that had been banned (effective January 1, 2016) by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). On June 8, 2016, she was suspended from playing tennis for two years by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). On October 4, 2016, the suspension was reduced to 15 months, starting from the date of the failed test, as the Court of Arbitration for Sport found that she had committed "no significant fault" and that she had taken the substance "based on a doctor's recommendation... with good faith belief that it was appropriate and compliant with the relevant rules". She returned to the WTA Tour in April 2017 at the Stuttgart Open. Sharapova retired from the sport in 2020. Sharapova has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She has appeared in many advertisements, including those for Nike, Prince, and Canon, and has been the face of several fashion houses, most notably Cole Haan. Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time and in March 2012 was named one of the "100 Greatest of All Time" by Tennis Channel. According to Forbes, she was the highest-paid female athlete in the world for 11 consecutive years and earned US$285 million (including prize money) since she turned professional in 2001. In 2018, she launched a new program to mentor women entrepreneurs. In 2025, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

== Early life == Maria Yuryevna Sharapova was born on April 19, 1987, in Nyagan, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. Her parents, Yuri Sharapov and Yelena, are from Gomel, Byelorussian SSR. Concerned about the regional effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, they left their hometown shortly before Maria was born.

=== Introduction to tennis === In 1990, when Sharapova was three, the family moved to Sochi, Russia. Her father, Yuri, befriended Aleksandr Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to win two Grand Slam singles titles and become Russia's first world No. 1 ranked tennis player. Aleksandr gave Sharapova her first tennis racquet in 1991 when she was four, whereupon she began practising regularly with her father at a local park. Maria took her first tennis lessons with veteran Russian coach Yuri Yutkin, who was instantly impressed when he saw her play, noting her "exceptional hand-eye coordination".

=== Start of professional training === In 1993, at the age of six, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navratilova, who recommended professional training with Nick Bollettieri at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Bollettieri had previously trained players such as Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, and Anna Kournikova. With limited financial resources, Yuri Sharapov borrowed the sum that would enable him and his daughter, neither of whom could speak English, to travel to the United States, which they did in 1994. Visa restrictions prevented Sharapova's mother from joining them for two years. Arriving in Florida with savings of US$700, Sharapova's father took various low-paying jobs to fund her lessons until she was old enough to be admitted to the academy. Initially, she trained with Rick Macci. In 1995, however, she was signed by IMG, which agreed to pay the annual tuition fee of $35,000 for Sharapova to stay at the academy, allowing her to finally enroll at the age of 9.

== Tennis career ==

=== Junior and early career === Sharapova first hit tennis fame in November 2000, when she won the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships in the girls' 16 division at the age of just 13. She was then given a special distinction, the Rising Star Award, awarded to players of exceptional promise. Sharapova made her professional debut in 2001 on her 14th birthday on April 19, and played her first WTA tournament at the Pacific Life Open in 2002, winning a match before losing to Monica Seles. Due to restrictions on how many professional events she could play, Sharapova went to hone her game in junior tournaments, where she reached the finals of the girls' singles events at the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2002. She was the youngest girl ever to reach the final of the Australian Open junior championship at 14 years and 9 months. Sharapova reached No. 6 in the ITF junior world singles ranking on October 21, 2002. In all, she won three junior singles tournaments and was runner-up at five, including two junior Grand Slam events. Her win–loss record in junior competition was 47–9. Her best results in the Junior Grand Slam tournaments were the finals of the 2002 Australian Open, finals of the 2002 Wimbledon Championships, third round of the 2002 French Open, and second round of the 2001 US Open.

=== 2003: First tournament titles === From 2003, Sharapova played a full season and made a rapid climb into the top 50 by the end of the year. She made her debuts at both the Australian Open and the French Open, but failed to win a match in either. Then, as a wildcard at Wimbledon, she defeated 11th seed Jelena Dokić, her first win over a top-20 player, to reach the fourth round, where she lost in three sets to Svetlana Kuznetsova. By the end of September, Sharapova had already captured her first WTA title at a smaller event, the Japan Open Tennis Championships, before winning her second in her final tournament of the season, the Bell Challenge in Quebec City. To cap off her first full season as a professional, she was awarded the WTA Newcomer of the Year honor.

=== 2004: Wimbledon glory and rise to fame ===