Biography of Maria Sharapova (a.k.a.: Maria Yuryevna Sharapova)

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova is a Russian former professional tennis player. Although she played under the banner of Russia with the Women's Tennis Association . She has lived in and been a United States permanent resident since 1994. Sharapova competed on the WTA tour from 2001 to 2020 and had been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the WTA on five separate occasions, for a total of 21 weeks. She is one of ten women, and the only Russian, to hold the career Grand Slam. She is also an Olympic medalist, having won a silver medal in women's singles at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Sharapova achieved a rare level of longevity in tennis, with several tennis pundits and former players calling Sharapova one of tennis' best competitors.

Sharapova became the world number 1 for the first time on 22 August 2005, at the age of 18, becoming the first Russian female tennis player to top the singles rankings, and last held the ranking for a fifth time for four weeks from 11 June 2012, to 8 July 2012. She won five Grand Slam titles: two at the French Open and one each at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open, winning 36 titles in total, including the year-ending WTA Finals in her debut in 2004. She also won three doubles titles.

Sharapova has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She has appeared in many advertisements, including those for Nike, Prince, and Canon, and has been the face of several fashion houses, most notably Cole Haan. Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time and in March 2012 was named one of the "100 Greatest of All Time" by Tennis Channel. According to Forbes, she has been named highest-paid female athlete in the world for 11 consecutive years and earned US$285 million since she turned pro in 2001. In 2018, she launched a new programme to mentor women entrepreneurs.

In March 2016, Sharapova revealed she had failed a drug test at the 2016 Australian Open. She had tested positive for meldonium, a substance that had been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. On 8 June 2016, she was suspended from playing tennis for two years by the International Tennis Federation. On October 4, 2016, the suspension was reduced to 15 months, starting from the date of the failed test, as the Court of Arbitration for Sports found that she had committed "no significant fault" and that she had taken the substance "based on a doctor's recommendation: with good faith belief that it was appropriate and compliant with the relevant rules". She returned to the WTA Tour on April 26, 2017 at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.