Tennis Career of Sharapova

2001-2003: The Beginning
Sharapova first gained attention on the tennis scene in November 2000 when she won the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships in the girls' 16 division at the age of just 13.[10] She was then given a special award, the Rising Star Award, which is awarded only to players of exceptional promise.[11] She made her professional debut in 2001.

2004: Top 10 Debut

Sharapova was defeated in the third round of the Australian Open by seventh seed Anastasia Myskina.[15] The highlight of the remainder of her spring hardcourt season was a run to the semifinals at thSharapova won the third title of her career at the Wimbledon warm-up DFS Classic, defeating Tatiana Golovin in the final.[15] Seeded 13th and aged 17 at Wimbledon, she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal by defeating Ai Sugiyama. There, she came back from a 6–2, 3–1 deficit to defeat fifth seed and former champion Lindsay Davenport. In the final, Sharapova upset top seed and defending champion Serena Williams to win her first Grand Slam singles title, and become the third youngest woman to win the Wimbledon title, behind only Lottie Dod and Martina Hingis. Sharapova also became the second Russian woman (after Anastasia Myskina had won the year's previous major at Roland Garros) to win a grand slam singles title. The victory was hailed as "the most stunning upset in memory",[16] with other writers commenting on her arrival as a serious challenger to the Williams' dominance at Wimbledon.[17] She entered the top ten in the rankings for the first time as a result of the win.[15]

Following her Wimbledon win, attention and interest in Sharapova in the media greatly increased, a rise in popularity dubbed as "Maria Mania."[18] However, on court, she was struggling to achieve results, winning just three of six matches in her preparations for the US Open. At the US Open itself, she reached the third round before being eliminated by Mary Pierce. In order to regain confidence, Sharapova played and won consecutive titles in Asia in the fall, the Hansol Korea Open Tennis Championships and the Japan Open Tennis Championships.

In October, Sharapova defeated Venus Williams en route to making the final of a Tier I event for the first time at the Zurich Open, losing in the final to Alicia Molik. She then made her debut at the year-ending WTA Tour Championships. There, she won two of her three round-robin matches (including a win over US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova) in order to advance to the semifinals, where she defeated Myskina. In the final, she defeated Serena Williams 4–6, 6–2, 6–4, after trailing 4–0 in the final set.[15]e Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup, where she ultimately lost to Vera Zvonareva.[15]

Rush Cute Sharapova's Story

Rush Sensation Sharapova was born in 1987 to Yury and Yelena, ethnic Belarusians, in the town of Nyagan' in Siberia, Russia. Her parents moved from Gomel, Belarus after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 affected the region.[7] When Sharapova was two, the family moved to Sochi where her father befriended Aleksandr Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to win two Grand Slam singles titles and became Russia's first ever World No. 1 tennis player. Aleksandr gave Sharapova her first tennis racket at the age of four, where upon she began practicing regularly with her father in a local park.[8] She took her first tennis lessons with veteran Russian coach Yuri Yutkin, who was instantly impressed when he first saw her play, noting her "exceptional hand-eye co-ordination."[9]

At the age of seven, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navrátilová, 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.[8] With money tight, Yuri was forced to borrow the sum that would allow him and his daughter, neither of whom could speak English, to travel to America, which they finally did in 1994.[9] Visa restrictions prevented Sharapova's mother from joining them for two years.[7] Arriving in Florida with savings of USD 700,[9] Sharapova's father took various low-paying jobs, including dish-washing, 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.[8]
[edit] Tennis career