Homeschooling Hero: Maria Sharapova

by Christina Yeager

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova, nicknamed as the “Screaming Cinderella” and “Siberian Siren” by the press, is a famous professional tennis player who was born in Russia. She began playing professional tennis in her teenage years and in spite of the fact that she sustained several sports injuries during her career, she has won many titles and retained her position as one of the best tennis players ever. Guess what? She was homeschooled!

---

---

Maria Sharapova was homeschooled in order to become a tennis star!

Homeschooling
Sharapova was gifted a tennis racket when she was only four years old. It wasn’t long before she started practicing with it on a regular basis with her father. In another three years time when she was just seven, Maria attended the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy situated in Florida.

By the time she was nine years old, Maria enrolled in the prestigious IMG Academy. When she turned eleven, her parents decided on homeschooling so Maria could polish her tennis skills. It proved to be an amazing choice. She was able to put a lot of time and hard work into training and went on to win the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championship at the tender age of thirteen. She was also awarded the ‘Rising Star’ award.

Accomplishments

• Played professional Tennis in 2001 and debuted at the Pacific Life Open in the following year
• Defeated Serena Williams to win her very first Grand Slam singles title at the Wimbledon in 2004 when she was just seventeen years old, making her the second Russian woman ever to have won a Grand Slam title in the singles category
• Her second Grand Slam singles victory came in the US Open against Justine Henin

Awards and Achievements

• She is the winner of one Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open title and two French Open titles
• She was chosen as the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the UNDP in 2007
• She was the very first torchbearer in the lighting ceremony of the Winter Olympics that were held in Russia in the year 2014
• As of the year 2015, Maria Sharapova was ranked at No.3 by the Women’s Tennis Association

Media
Maria Sharapova has endorsed several non-sports brands such as the likes of Motorola, Tiffany, Nike, and Porsche to name a few.

She has a massive fan following on social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook.

Currently
2018 saw Maria enter the Wuhan, Beijing and Tianjin tournaments. She was the defending champion in the Tianjin tournament. She was looking forward to ending her season on a high note in the three consecutive tournaments that she was to play in October, but as fate would have it she had to pull out of these and other remaining tournaments of 2018 due to an injury.
​
She released a press statement saying, “I was looking forward to coming back to Tianjin to defend my title but unfortunately I need to give myself time to recover from injury.”

Maria is due to return to tennis in the month of January next year.
​

---