Maria Sharapova - Professional Tennis Player and Endorser

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player.

A former World No. 1, she was on November 15, 2008, ranked World No. 9 by the Women’s Tennis Association. Sharapova has won three Grand Slam singles titles. In 2004, at the age of 17, she won Wimbledon, defeating Serena Williams in the final. She has since won the 2006 US Open, defeating Justine Henin in the final, and the 2008 Australian Open, defeating Ana Ivanović in the final.

Sharapova has represented Russia in Fed Cup, although her appearances have been controversial. She has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in Sports Illustrated. Sharapova was the most searched-for athlete on Yahoo! in both 2005 and 2008. In July 2008, as a result of her success both on and off court, she was the world’s highest-paid female athlete.

As of October 2008, she is coached by her father, Yuri Sharapov, and former player Michael Joyce.

Sharapova is a power baseliner, with power, depth, and angles on her groundstrokes. Instead of using a traditional volley or overhead smash, she often prefers to hit a powerful “swinging” volley when approaching the net or attacking lobs. Sharapova is thought to have good speed around the court, especially considering her height. At the beginning of 2008, some observers noted that Sharapova had developed her game, showing improved movement and footwork and the addition of a drop shot and sliced backhand to her repertoire of shots.

Sharapova playing at the Zurich Open in 2006.

Sharapova’s preferred surfaces are the fast-playing hard and grass courts because her game is not as well-suited to the slower-playing clay courts. She lacks confidence in her ability to move and slide on this surface and once described herself as like a “cow on ice” after a match on clay. Her limitations on this surface are reflected in her career results, as she did not win a Women’s Tennis Association tour title on clay until April 2008 (despite having won 18 titles on other surfaces) and because the French Open is the only Grand Slam singles title she has not yet won.

Sharapova is known for on-court “grunting”, which reached a recorded 101 decibels during a match at Wimbledon in 2005.She has maintained that grunting is an element of her game. She faced criticism for it though, from fellow competitor Elena Dementieva and Judy Murray, mother of Andy, at Wimbledon that year. Monica Seles, a notorious grunter, came to her defence, saying that the noise produced is involuntary and a part of women’s tennis.

Sharapova was born in 1987 to Yuri and Elena, ethnic Russians, in the town of Nyagan in Siberia, Russia. Previously her parents had lived in Gomel, Belarus, but were compelled to move after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. When Sharapova was two, the family moved to Sochi. There, Sharapova’s father befriended Aleksandre Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to become a Grand Slam champion. Aleksandre gave Sharapova her first tennis racket at the age of four and subsequently, she and her father began to practice regularly in the local park.

Aged six, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navratilova, who noted Sharapova was talented but required professional training, recommending the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida.Sharapova and her father, neither of whom could speak English, moved to Florida in 1994. Because of visa restrictions, Sharapova’s mother could not originally move with them, though she eventually joined them two years later. Sharapova’s father was forced to take various low-paid jobs to fund her lessons, including washing dishes, and, until the age of 12, she rode to the academy each day on the handlebars of Yuri’s bicycle as they could not afford any other method of transport. Sharapova developed rapidly at the academy and began playing junior tournaments.

Sharapova will begin the year at the 2009 Open Gaz de France in Paris. She withdrew from the Australian Open, where she was defending champion. She had originally planned to begin playing in 2009 at the World Team Challenge in Hong Kong, but later withdrew, stating that she was not yet in the proper condition due to minor surgery performed on her troubled right shoulder in late 2008.

Source [ Wikipedia ]