If she hadn’t been passionate about tennis since she was 4 years old, perhaps now the girl born in Sochi, the land known as the “summer capital of Russia”, would have been a model or actress. From a young age, with her slim figure, blonde hair, and oval face, Maria Sharapova, also affectionately known as Masha, easily attracted sympathy from those around her. But instead of choosing feminine arts like ballet or gymnastics, Maria Sharapova is passionate about felt balls. At that time, America was the ideal place to study professional tennis. The father of the “Russian doll” recklessly took his daughter to the promised land without knowing a word of English.

To pay for the tuition fees for his daughter’s seemingly unrealistic wish, Masha’s father had to do very hard manual labor. As for the little Russian girl, she has to learn to adapt to life in a foreign land. Perhaps Sharapova’s characteristic shrill screams, reaching up to 105 decibels – equal to the sound created by a hand drill – emerged from the struggle of those difficult years.

Becoming the youngest player in history to reach the final of the Australian Open youth tournament in 2002, at just 14 years and 9 months old, Sharapova continued to prove her ability when competing in her first WTA professional tournament at the Pacific Life Open. At 16 years old, Masha received a special ticket to attend Wimbledon for the first time. At the end of that season, “Russian Doll” entered the top 50 in the world. A year later, the beauty made tennis’ number one star at that time, Serena Williams, extremely humiliated when she defeated the American tennis player, became the 2004 Wimbledon champion, and rose to the top 10 in the world.

That same year, Sharapova continued to affirm that the Grand Slam title was not a fluke when at the WTA Finals championship match, she once again made Serena Williams cry. It only took the beauty a year to confidently step up to number 1 in the world’s women’s tennis industry, conquering the 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open championships. But since then, in addition to her success in her competitive career, match, Maria Sharapova faced a shoulder injury and then a collarbone injury.

Those were probably the most difficult years in Masha’s life and career. She had to work hard not to lose her world ranking and prove herself by winning the French Open finals in 2012 and 2014 while her injuries kept coming back. At that time, Serena Williams also rose to regain her form and continuously defeated her Russian colleague at the 2012 London Olympics, the 2013 French Open final, and the 2015 Australian Open.

Since 2016, Maria Sharapova faced bad times when she was banned from competition for 2 years, which was later reduced to 15 months because she tested positive for meldonium. Instead of falling into a deep pit of despair, at that time, Masha temporarily stayed away from tennis, initially practicing boxing, cycling, swimming, and finding joy in life.

Returning to compete at the 2017 Stuttgart tournament, the Russian beauty had to stop before reaching the second round due to a thigh injury. Not yet satisfied with the joy of receiving a special ticket to attend the tournament in Tianjin 2018 and being crowned champion, Masha had to receive “bitter consequences” when she received defeat in her opening match at the Australian Open 2020. 373 perhaps is the most tragic number in Sharapova’s life because that is her world ranking position after this tournament.

Maria Sharapova’s love life and tennis career have many ups and downs in common. After long and short relationships with Adam Levine, Sasha Vujacic or Grigor Dimitrov, the “Russian doll” is happy with British businessman Alexander Gilkes. Maria Sharapova’s 15 million followers on Facebook and 4 million followers on Instagram probably hope for a beautiful ending to this love affair as well as other plans that will go smoothly after she retires.