Maria Sharapova is one of the most famous and successful tennis players in the world. Since she first picked up a racket at the age of 4, she has gone on to win five grand slams and break a host of world records with her unique talent.
Tennis fans across the world were stunned when Sharapova announced her retirement earlier this year at the age of 32. She may be retiring at the top of her game, but Sharapova has had to overcome many challenges and obstacles on her journey to the top.
Photo by Rabbani and Solimene Photography/Getty Images
Let’s take a look back at Sharapova’s unstoppable rise to fame and her incredible life story through photos.
A Star is Born
Maria Sharapova was born in 1987 in Nyagan, Russia, the only child of Yuri and Yelena Sharapova.
Her parents had fled their homeland of Belarus shortly before she was born, following the events of the Chernobyl disaster.
Carving a new life for themselves in Russia, Sharapova’s father was a construction worker, and her mother was a stay-at-home-mom. Sharapova’s family didn’t have a huge amount of money, but they were committed to giving their daughter a loving, stable home, and the best start in life they could offer her.
Image via mariasharapova / Instagram, Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
They had no idea just how successful she would become.
A Rocky Start
Sharapova remembers her childhood fondly, but it wasn’t without its hardships.
As her parents had fled from their homeland following the 1986 nuclear explosion in Chernobyl, they had to rebuild their lives from scratch.
Nyagan was the only place they could afford to move to, and it was a bleak, industrial town in Western Siberia, with freezing temperatures reaching as far as -40 degrees.
Image via mariasharapova / Instagram
The town was constantly engulfed in fumes from the nearby factories, but this was still nowhere near as dangerous as the radiation they were fleeing from in Belarus.
Strong Foundations
Despite the harsh conditions of her childhood, Sharapova is grateful to this day that her parents made the decision to escape.
“My mother was pregnant with me when Chernobyl exploded 30 kilometers from where we lived,” she recalled in an interview with Fast Company.
"When I look back at what happened, I just think, 'Oh, my God, I just can't believe it,” she said in an interview with the Telegraph. I feel so lucky that I got out of it… it's incredible really. I am lucky to be alive and well."
Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Sharapova wasn’t just alive and well – she was destined to be a star.
A Promising Beginning
Maria Sharapova’s love affair with tennis took off rapidly, as she accompanied her father, a keen lover of the sport, to his games.
“The first time I remember seeing a tennis court, my father was playing on it,” she said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “I was four years old in Sochi, Russia—so small that my tiny legs were dangling off the bench I was sitting on. So small that the racket I picked up next to me was twice my size.”
Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images, photo via mariasharapova / Instagram
This tiny little girl would go on to become one of the biggest tennis talents of all time.
Impressing Coach
But it wasn’t Sharapova’s father who first noticed her incredible talent. It was his coach, veteran Yuri Yutkin, who happened to glance at Sharapova one day as she sat by the sidelines.
One day, he noticed that she had got bored watching the game, and had picked up a racket and was hitting balls around for fun.
Yutkin was amazed by what he saw – despite the fact that the racket was almost as big as Sharapova herself, she displayed an incredible skill, and exceptional hand-eye coordination.
Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Yutkin was so impressed that he offered to coach her himself.
Racket Ruckus
Sharapova continued to practice and gain even more experience in the sport, impressing both her father and her coach with her stunning natural talent.
There was only one problem – times were hard in Russia in the early 1990s, and it was impossible for anyone to scrape together the money to buy this young prodigy a racket suited to her tiny size.
And so this pint-sized superstar in the making continued to practice with a giant racket, almost as tall as her.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
It was clear that nothing would stop Sharapova on her way to sporting stardom.
