Known for her moves with the tennis racket, here are 15 interesting Facts about the Wimbledon Champion “Maria Sharapova”:-
1. Maria Sharapova was born on April 19, 1987 in Nyagan, western Siberia, after her parents fled their home in Gomel following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
2. Now a global superstar, she is a UN Goodwill Ambassador, and has donated heavily to Chernobyl-related projects.
3.She was the most searched athlete on Yahoo in 2005 and 2008.
4. Sponsors recognised her marketing potential at a young age – she signed her first deal, with Nike, back in June 1997 when she was just 11.
5. Her tennis talent was spotted even earlier – in Oct 1993, Martina Navratilova saw a young Sharapova playing at a tennis clinic in Moscow and told Maria’s father, Yuri, that his daughter was especially gifted.
6. While living in Russia her father became friends with the father of Yevgeny Kafelnikov, one of Russia’s most successful male players. He presented the four-year-old Maria with a cut-down racket.
7. To pursue her potential, she and her father emigrated to Miami in 1994 – neither spoke English and they had just $700 dollars that Yuri had borrowed from Maria’s grandparents.
8. She was too young to enrol in a tennis academy so Yuri worked odd jobs and coached Maria himself on public courts.
9. Maria spent her first two years in America separated from her mother Yelena, who was denied a visa until finally being allowed to join her family in June 1996.
10. In December 1995, Maria got a full-time scholarship to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, which has also produced stars such as Andre Agassi, Boris Becker and the Williams sisters.
11. At 15, she became the youngest person ever to reach the finals of Australian Open junior tournament in 2002.
12. In 2004, at the age of 17, she won her first grand slam title – Wimbledon.
13.Miss Sharapova further endeared herself to Londoners by saying she finds British accents “sexy” and counts London among her favourite cities.
14. In August 2005 she became the first Russian woman ever to be No 1 in the world tennis rankings.
15 . In 2007, she was voted FHM’s 7th most eligible bachelorette, finishing higher than Paris Hilton and Keira Knite ley.
-MISBAAH MANSURI
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