Maria Sharapova | Biography, Grand Slam, Suspension, & Facts (2024)

Maria Sharapova (born April 19, 1987, Nyagan, Russia) is a Russian tennis player who was one of the game’s leading contenders in the early 21st century, the winner of five Grand Slam titles.

Sharapova began playing tennis as a young child, and in 1993 she caught the attention of Czech-born American tennis star Martina Navratilova. Following a suggestion by Navratilova, Sharapova and her father moved (1994) to Florida, where she quickly earned a scholarship to a tennis academy. In 2001, at the age of 14, she turned pro. At the time, women’s tennis was shifting to a power game, which suited Sharapova’s dominating style of play and her size; she eventually reached a height of 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 metres). In 2003 she competed in every Grand Slam event, with her best finish coming at Wimbledon, where she reached the fourth round. That year she won her first Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) titles, at Tokyo and Quebec City. In 2004 she defeated Serena Williams in the final at Wimbledon to win her first Grand Slam. The following year Sharapova was ranked number one for the first time in her career, reaching the semifinals at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. In 2006 she won the latter event, and in 2008 she claimed her third Grand Slam, at the Australian Open.

Later that year, however, Sharapova was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, an injury that eventually required surgery. She returned to the court in mid-2009, and over the next two seasons she claimed several WTA titles, though a Grand Slam championship eluded her; Sharapova’s best result occurred in 2011, when she lost the Wimbledon finals. She returned to form in 2012, however, winning the French Open to become just the seventh female player in the Open era to complete a career Grand Slam. That year she also captured a silver medal at the London Olympic Games. After a solid start in 2013—highlighted by an appearance in the French Open final, which she lost to Williams—a shoulder injury forced Sharapova to miss the last six months of the season. She returned to competitive play in 2014, and later that year she won the French Open, her fifth Grand Slam.

In March 2016 Sharapova revealed that she had taken meldonium (marketed as Mildronate)—a heart medication that had recently been added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances—during the Australian Open earlier in the year. Three months later she was suspended from tennis for two years by the International Tennis Federation for her meldonium-induced failure of a drug test. (Her suspension was reduced to 15 months upon appeal.) Sharapova returned to the WTA tour in April 2017. However, she struggled to regain her form and continued to be plagued by injuries. In 2020 she announced her retirement. Her memoir, Unstoppable: My Life So Far (written with Rich Cohen), was published in 2017.