MARIA SHARAPOVA
Former Australian champion and Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova was crashed out from this year’s Australian Open tennis championship on yesterday. She was defeated by her friend and former doubles partner Maria Kirilenko with the score 7-6, 3-6, 6-4. In 3 hour and 22-minute match between Sharapova and Kirilenko, Sharapova made 66 unforced errors and 11 double faults. This was the first time that Sharapova lost in the first round of a major tournament after ‘2003 French Open’. Sharapova gained the ‘Australian Open tennis championship’ in 2008. In addition, she is a former World No. 1 tennis player and the winner of three ‘Grand Slam’ single titles.
BIOGRAPHY
Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova was born on 19th April, 1987 in Nyagan, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union as the daughter of Yuri and Elena. She started to playing tennis at the age of four. At the age of nine, she had moved to Bradenton, Florida to train at Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy which had previously trained players such as Andre Agassi, Monica Seles and Anna Kournikov. She turned into professional tennis player in 2001 at the age of 14. She gained her first WTA victory at the 2003 AIG Japan Open. Sharapova rose into the famous when she won Wimbledon in 2004 by defeating defending champion Serena Williams in the final. She gained this first grand slam title only at the age of 17. After that, she gained eight titles on the WTA tour and reached in World No.1 position in a short period. In 2007, she was forced to withdraw from many matches due to injuries and she was dropped form No.1 position. Her other Grand Slam title were ‘2006 US Open’ and ‘2008 Australian open’. In 2008, she returned in World No.1 rank position. She was again away from the tennis for ten months until May 2009, which caused her ranking to drop out of the top 100. However, her current rank position is 14. She is a powerful baseliner and she also has been called “the Queen of Screams” for her habit of grunting loudly while hitting the ball. In addition to the tennis, Sharapova featured in a number of modeling assignments. She was selected by Yahoo as the most searched-for athlete in both 2005 and 2008 and she was the world’s highest-paid female athlete in 2008. In additon, she also involved in many charitable works. She donated around US$50,000 to those people who were affected by Beslan school hostage crisis in 2005. She was the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and donated US$100,000 to UNDP Chernobyl-recovery projects. In addition, her physical beauty helped her to gain many commercial endorsements