The 21st century
Russia · born Nyagan, 1987 · right-handed · Wimbledon champion at 17
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17
Her age when she won Wimbledon in 2004, beating Serena Williams 6-1, 6-4
13
Her seeding in 2004, then the lowest of any Wimbledon women's champion
24
Grass-court matches won in a row, 2004 to 2005
2
Wimbledon singles finals, 2004 and 2011
2012
Olympic silver medal, won on the grass at Wimbledon
Maria Sharapova was born in Nyagan, Siberia, on 19 April 1987, to parents who had left Gomel after the Chernobyl disaster. The family moved to Sochi, where she began to play, and on the advice of Martina Navratilova her father, Yuri, took her to Florida as a small child to train at the Nick Bollettieri Academy. She turned professional at 14 and in 2004, aged 17 and seeded 13th, won Wimbledon by beating Serena Williams 6-1, 6-4 in the final.
She became the first Russian woman to reach world No. 1, in August 2005, and completed the career Grand Slam at the 2012 French Open. She won five major singles titles from ten finals (Wimbledon 2004, the US Open 2006, the Australian Open 2008 and the French Open 2012 and 2014), 36 WTA singles titles and an Olympic silver medal in 2012. Shoulder injuries, and surgery in late 2008, cost her large parts of several seasons.
In 2016 she tested positive at the Australian Open for meldonium, which had been added to the banned list that January. The International Tennis Federation suspended her for two years; the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced the ban to 15 months, and she returned in April 2017. She retired in February 2020 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2025.
| Wimbledon 2004 | Seeded 13th. Semi-final: beat Lindsay Davenport 2-6, 7-6, 6-1. Final: beat the two-time defending champion Serena Williams 6-1, 6-4 in 73 minutes, the first Russian to win a Wimbledon singles title |
|---|---|
| Birmingham | Won the singles in 2004, beating Tatiana Golovin 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, and again in 2005 against Jelena Janković. Lost the final in 2007 to Janković and in 2010 to Li Na |
| Wimbledon semi-finals | 2005: reached the semi-finals as defending champion without dropping a set, then lost to Venus Williams, ending a run of 24 grass-court wins. 2006: lost the semi-final to Amélie Mauresmo |
| Wimbledon 2011 final | Reached the final without dropping a set and lost to Petra Kvitová 6-3, 6-4, serving six double faults |
| London Olympics 2012 | Carried the Russian flag at the opening ceremony and won the silver medal on the Wimbledon grass, losing the final to Serena Williams after winning one game |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Women's singles | |
| Birmingham | ||
| 2004 | Women's doubles | with Maria Kirilenko |
| 2004 | Women's singles | |
| 2005 | Women's singles | |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"I'm absolutely speechless. I never, never in my life expected this to happen so fast."
The person behind the player.
Gomel and Sochi, 1986 to 1993
Her parents lived in Gomel, near Chernobyl, and left after the 1986 disaster for Siberia, where she was born, then moved on to Sochi. "If you had to pick one event that made me a player, it'd be Chernobyl," she wrote in her memoir, Unstoppable. As a child she played with one of Yevgeny Kafelnikov's old racquets, cut down and still far too big for her.
Source: WTAFlorida, 1990s
She arrived in Florida with her father and $700, with a single change of clothes and shoes from a factory in Minsk. Her mother was refused permission to join them for two years, and they spoke once a week on the phone, briefly because of the cost. At the Bollettieri Academy she was often handed Anna Kournikova's old clothes: "skintight animal prints are not usually my thing."
Source: WTABirmingham, 2003
At 16, playing a grass-court tournament in Birmingham, she was the subject of a complaint from the husband of her opponent, Nathalie Dechy, who called over the supervisor because she was grunting. "I don't even know I'm doing it," she wrote later. "Without realising, this was becoming my thing."
Source: WTAWimbledon 2004
Before the 2004 Championships the Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, on whom she had a teenage crush, told journalists she could win the title. "It was magic to hear Juan Carlos say my name, especially in that Spanish accent of his," she wrote. That fortnight she ate at the same Chinese restaurant in Wimbledon Village, Tianjin, and always ordered numbers 8, 47 and 87.
Source: WTACentre Court, 3 July 2004
Before the final she bit her nails, tapped her foot and checked her pulse. After match point she climbed into the stands to hug her father, then took out a mobile phone to call her mother, Yelena, in Florida, and could not get through. To Serena Williams she said: "I have to take this trophy from you for one year. I'm sorry."
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