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Maria Sharapova Biography
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Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player and the current World No. 1.As of the end of 2006, she was the world's highest-paid female athlete.
Sharapova has won two Grand Slam singles titles. She is the reigning U.S. Open champion, having defeated Justine Henin in the final of the 2006 U.S. Open. Two years earlier, she defeated Serena Williams in the final at Wimbledon.
Personal life
Sharapova's parents moved from Homyel, Belarus, to Siberia, Russia, in 1986, after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. She was born the following year in Nyagan, Russia.
At seven, Sharapova was brought to the United States by her father, Yuri Sharapov, to attend the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Her mother, Yelena, who could not come with them because of visa restrictions, followed a few years later. Sharapova has lived in the United States since then but retains her Russian citizenship.
Sharapova recently purchased a beach home in Manhattan Beach, California , a suburb of Los Angeles, but lives most of the year near the IMG training facility in Bradenton.
Career 2004 and 2005
In 2004, a year after reaching the fourth round of Wimbledon as a wild card, Sharapova became the third-youngest Wimbledon women's champion (after Lottie Dod and Martina Hingis) and second-youngest in the open era by defeating Ai Sugiyama (5-7, 7-5, 6-1) in a quarterfinal, Lindsay Davenport (2-6, 7-6, 6-1) in a semifinal, and two-time defending champion Serena Williams (6-1, 6-4) in the final. She also became the first Russian to win that tournament. At the U.S. Open a few months later, she lost to French player and two-time Grand Slam champion Mary Pierce. Sharapova ended 2004 with a victory at the season-ending WTA Championships, defeating an injured Serena Williams (4-6, 6-2, 6-4) after coming back from 0-4 in the final set. After losing to Sharapova in a semifinal of this event, Anastasia Myskina said: "He [Sharapova's father] was just yelling and screaming instructions to her and I thought he just might jump right on the court at one point in the match."
From June 2004 until her Wimbledon semifinal appearance in 2005, Sharapova won 22 straight matches on grass, including consecutive Birmingham titles and the Wimbledon title. She reached the semifinals of the 2005 Australian Open, where she held three match points against Serena Williams before losing 2-6, 7-5, 8-6. Off court, she was paid for numerous commercial endorsements.
Defending her Wimbledon title in 2005, Sharapova reached the semifinals without losing a set but then fell to a rejuvenated Venus Williams (7-6, 6-1). Sharapova's streak on grass was ended, as was her quest to dethrone top-ranked Davenport.
However, Davenport injured her back in the Wimbledon final, preventing her from defending the ranking points she obtained during the U.S. hard-court season of 2004. Sharapova had fewer points to defend and therefore rose to the No. 1 ranking on August 22, 2005. Her reign lasted only one week, however, as Davenport re-ascended to the top ranking after winning the title in New Haven. Sharapova rose to the No. 1 ranking again on September 12, 2005, despite losing in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. Sharapova kept the No. 1 ranking for six weeks before relinquishing it again to Davenport following the 2005 Zurich Open.
Sharapova's loss in a semifinal of the 2005 U.S. Open against Kim Clijsters marked the fourth time that year she had lost at a Grand Slam tournament to the eventual champion: Australian Open-SF-Serena Williams, French Open-QF-Justine Henin, Wimbledon-SF-Venus Williams, U.S. Open-SF-Clijsters.
2006
At the 2006 Australian Open, Sharapova lost in the semifinals to Justine Henin 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, the only match of the year that she lost after winning the first set.
Sharapova claimed her first title of 2006 and eleventh of her career at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California, a Tier 1 event at which she was the third seed. Sharapova and No. 4 seed Elena Dementieva became the first Russians to reach the event's final, with Sharapova triumphing 6-1, 6-2. Soon after, Sharapova lost in the final of the Nasdaq-100 Open to Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4, 6-3.
Sharapova participated at the 2006 French Open without having played any of the clay-court tune-ups. After saving three match points in the first round against Mashona Washington, Sharapova was eliminated in the fourth round by Dinara Safina 7-5, 2-6, 7-5, after Sharapova led 5-1 in the third set. Sharapova lost 18 of the match's last 21 points.
Sharapova welcomed the onset of the grass season but failed to add a third successive Birmingham title to her collection, losing in the semifinals to American Jamea Jackson.
For the second consecutive year, Sharapova was defeated in the semifinals of Wimbledon, losing to eventual winner Amelie Mauresmo 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.
Sharapova claimed her second title of 2006 as the second seed at the Acura Classic in San Diego, defeating top-seeded Kim Clijsters 7-5, 7-5. This was Sharapova's first victory over Clijsters in five meetings.
Sharapova entered the 2006 U.S. Open seeded third after Clijsters dropped out of the tournament with a wrist injury. Favored to reach the final, she defeated Mauresmo, the top-ranked player in the world, in a semifinal 6-0, 4-6, 6-0. Sharapova then prevailed over Henin in the final 6-4, 6-4 to win her second Grand Slam title.
Sharapova won the Zurich Open, defeating Daniela Hantuchova 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 in the final. Sharapova then won the Generali Ladies Linz, defeating fellow Russian and defending champion Nadia Petrova 7-5, 6-2, to take her fifth title of 2006 and the 15th title of her career.
It has been announced that Sharapova will play for the Russian Fed Cup team for the first time in 2007.
2007
Sharapova began 2007 by reaching the final of the Watson Water Champions Challenge, an exhibition tournament and warm-up for the 2007 Australian Open, where she was defeated by Kim Clijsters 6-3, 7-6(8).
At the Australian Open, the top-seeded Sharapova defeated the 62nd-ranked Camille Pin in the first round 6-3, 4-6, 9-7 on her fourth match point. The match was played in air temperatures that exceeded 40 °C (104 °F) and on-court temperatures that exceeded 50 °C (122 °F). In the fourth round, Sharapova defeated compatriot Vera Zvonareva 7-5, 6-4. In the quarterfinals, Sharapova defeated the twelfth-seeded Anna Chakvetadze 7-6(5), 7-5. She then defeated fourth-seeded Clijsters 6-4, 6-2 in the semifinals to reach her first Australian Open final and gain the opportunity to win the only Grand Slam singles title that a Russian woman had not yet won. However, Serena Williams, ranked No. 81 in the world, won easily 6-1, 6-2. Williams was the third-lowest-ranked player in the open era to win a Grand Slam singles title.
As of January 27, 2007:
-Sharapova has a 3-5 record in Grand Slam semifinals.
-Sharapova has a 3-8 record against the other top players in the world (1-3 against third-ranked Amelie Mauresmo and 2-5 against second ranked Justine Henin). Sharapova is 2-3 against Serena Williams and 3-4 against Clijsters, both of whom were formerly top-ranked.
source: wikipedia.org
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