Maria Sharapova was born in Russia in 1987 and showed early tennis talent from a young age. Her family moved to the United States when she was 7 so she could attend the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. She turned pro in 2001 and won her first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2004, becoming the first Russian woman to win a Grand Slam. Sharapova has won 4 Grand Slam singles titles total and spent 21 weeks ranked as the world's number 1 player. However, shoulder injuries forced her to take time away from tennis in 2008 and 2009 before returning to success, winning her fourth Grand Slam title at the 2012 French Open.
2. •
Maria Sharapova was born on April 19, 1987 in Nyagan, Soviet Union. Her
parents, Yuri and Elena, are from Gomel, Belarus. Concerned about the regional
effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, they left their homeland shortly
before Sharapova was born. When Sharapova was two, the family moved to
Sochi. There her father 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 at
the age of four, whereupon she began practicing regularly with her father at a
local park. She 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."
3. •
At the age of six, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navratilova,
who recommended professional training at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida,
which had previously trained players such as Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, and Anna
Kournikova. With money tight, Yuri borrowed the sum that would enable him and his
daughter, neither of whom could speak English, to travel to the United States, which they
finally 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 lowpaying jobs, including dishwashing, to fund her lessons until she was old enough to be
admitted to the academy. In 1995, she was signed by IMG, who 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.
4. •
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2003: First tournament titles;
2004: Winning Wimbledon;
2005: World no. 1;
2006: US Open champion;
2007: Shoulder injury and fall out
of the top 5;
2008: Australian Open champion
and recurrence of shoulder injury;
2009: Shoulder surgery and
rehabilitation;
2010: Struggles with form;
2011: Return to top 10;
2012: Return to no. 1, Career Grand
Slam and Olympic silver medal
5. •
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova is a Russian professional tennis player
who as of August 26, 2013 is ranked World No. 3 by the Women's
Tennis Association (WTA) and is the top Russian player. AUnited
States resident since 1994, Sharapova has won twenty-nine WTA
singles titles, including four Grand Slam singles titles. She has also
won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in 2004. The WTA has
ranked Sharapova World No. 1 in singles on five separate occasions,
for a total of 21 weeks. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on
August 22, 2005, and last held the ranking for the fifth time for four
weeks from June 11, 2012 to July 8, 2012. She has been in eight
Grand Slam finals with a record of 4–4.
6. •
Sharapova made her professional breakthrough in 2004 at age 17,
when she defeated two-time defending champion and top seedSerena
Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final for her first Grand Slam singles
title. She entered the top 10 of the WTA Rankings with the win. The
world no. 1 ranking followed in 2005, along with subsequent major titles
at the 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open, before she was
forced out of the game for ten months by a recurring shoulder injury,
which ultimately required surgery in October 2008. Sharapova returned
to the game in May 2009, returning to the top 10 in March 2011 and
capturing her fourth Grand Slam title at the 2012 French Open. By
doing so, she became the sixth woman in the Open Era to complete
the career Grand Slamin singles. In the same year, she won
an Olympic silver medal in the London 2012 Olympics.
