Maria Sharapova (Maria Sharapova)

The Russian champion

Maria Sharapova is a former Russian professional tennis player born in 1987 in Siberia. Her parents moved there before she was born, fearing the effects of Chernobyl in their native Belarus. When she was four years old, she was given her first tennis racket and when she was six, she attended an exhibition match with Martina Navratilova and had the opportunity to play a few balls with her. She saw her potential and recommended that the family take Maria to the training center in Florida. She went with her father who took many odd jobs to pay for her training until it was taken over by the academy. She became a professional at 14 and won her first two tournaments at 16 in Tokyo and Quebec and was ranked 13th in the world. The following year, she became the first Russian to win Wimbledon. After numerous injuries, she came back and won Roland Garros in 2012 and 2014. She finally put an end to her career at the beginning of 2020 following too many injuries and the doping scandal that tarnished her reputation a few years earlier.