Picture the legend in making Maria Sharapova

There have been many examples of people facing adverse conditions at their early part of their life and later go on to become an idol for others. Maria Sharapova also has faced similar problems at her childhood age. She has earned a name for her at the age when many enjoy the comfort of their parents shelter.

Maria Sharapova is the first Russian to win a Wimbledon singles title and the third-youngest women's champion in history. She is also the second Russian woman to win a Grand Slam title ever. She was the youngest titlist on the WTA Tour last year and was awarded the "Newcomer of the Year" prize by the WTA Tour.

Maria is now a big celebrity and finds her name in every newspaper and magazine. She is six feet tall, bold and beautiful. She is the new rising star of tennis world. She has huge serve considering her age. Her ground strokes are powerful and heavy. She has good sense of ball that makes her natural timings for strokes more effective. She doesn’t allow her opponents to settle, makes her opponent to run everywhere on the court. She is too fast for others to play with her. Often players with good height find it difficult to be quick in court but this is not the case with Maria. Her approach towards game is different. Her passion for game can be seen from the way she grunts on the ground, the way she pumps her fist and slaps her thigh. Maria plays without fear, and has a sixth sense for competition. She's not the type of person to choke when things start going wrong - she has shown impressive mental toughness and self-belief so far.

Maria was born on 19th April 1987 in Nyagon, in the Siberian region of Russia. Yuri Sharapova is her father and her mother's name is Yelena (Maria has no brothers or sisters). They are not pushy parents, for Maria is exceptionally self-motivated. The Sharapova family fled to the Black Sea resort of Sochi in 1989, to escape radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. There, at the age of four, Maria met Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who gave her first tennis-racket and she started playing against the wall of her house. In 1992 while playing in an exhibition tournament in Moscow the five-year-old Maria was spotted by tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who recommended her to join Nick Bollettieri's tennis academy in the United States. In 1995 Maria and her father travelled to Miami and straight away headed towards Bollettieri's academy in Bradenton, Florida. One of Bollettieri's coaches agreed to take her on court and taught her various skills of the game.

When she came to the United States it wasn't easy for her. She didn't see her mom for two years and she barely saw her dad for one year. She was living in a dormitory by herself and sacrificed a lot of things. The earliest Maria result came across when she cause upset for Bernice Burlet 6-3 6-4 in the 1997 Eddie Herr International Junior Championships, when she was only ten. In October 2000, thirteen-year-old Maria won the singles at Angela Maria Lopera. In November, she won the Eddie Herr girl’s 16-and-under division, beating top seed Chia Jung Chuang 6-3 6-3, Shadisha Robinson 6-0 6-0, and Myriam Casanova 7-6 6-4 in the final. Maria turned professional on her 14th birthday.

The year 2001 was important for her since it was to decide her career. In July, Maria won a junior-tournament at Ex Pilsen, Czech Republic, beating Aurelia Miseviciute 6-1 6-1 in the final. In October, Maria won the Chanda Rubin International junior-tournament in California followed by the Chanda Rubin American ITF Circuit junior-tournament in South Carolina. In January 2002 Maria became the youngest-ever girl’s singles finalist at the Australian Open at the age of fourteen years and nine months. She however could not win the finals. Also in March, Maria won the Target Cup junior-tournament at the Nasdaq-100 Open in Key Biscayne, Florida. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday in April, Maria won her first senior title at the Gunma challenger without dropping a set. Maria won her second ITF challenger at Vancouver in August and her third ITF challenger at Peachtree City in September.

In 2003 Maria successfully qualified for the Australian Open, her first senior Grand Slam tournament. Maria said goodbye to the ITF circuit by winning the Sea Island challenger in May. She broke into the top hundred of the WTA rankings. By the time Wimbledon started, there was already much hype about Maria in the media. Sadly, Maria failed in her attempt to become the first-ever wild card to reach the quarter-finals of the women's singles at Wimbledon. Maria won the first WTA Tour titles of her career at the Tokyo Japan Open. Maria won her second WTA doubles title at Luxembourg and her second WTA singles title at Québec. She achieved Wimbledon 2004 title by beating Serena Williamsin finals. Sharapova has already won £300,000 from her playing career.

Her off-court interests include fashion, singing, jazz dancing and movies (favorite is Pearl Harbor). She enjoys reading books in the Sherlock Holmes and Pippi Long stocking series. She likes Russian music and food, Russian food (except for Italian bread). Maria has showed to world that success is earned with one’s sheer strong will power, determination and dedication.