Tennis Talk

Maria Sharapova is a professional tennis player from Russia. She began playing tennis at a young ageand soon moved to Florida with her father when she was nine years old. Soon after moving to Florida, Sharapova attended the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy because she got a scholarship there. She kept getting better and better as she played and became professional when she was only fourteen years old. In 2004, Maria competed at Wimbledon and won the women’s singles title. This made her Russias first Wimbledon champion ever. Her success continued and in 2005 she was in the top ranking in tennis which made her also, the first Russian woman to achieve that. In 2006 she won a second Grand Slam title while competing at the U.S Open. Tragedy hit when Sharpova began to have shoulder problems in 2007 and ended up having surgery on it in 2009. She took time off, but began again and by the end of the year, made it back to top 20. In 2012, Maria won four major tournaments which moved her all the way up to number 1 in the world. As the years went on, she continued to move up in different tournaments.

In the previous post, I mentioned that Sharapova had been caught taking drugs. She had been taking a drug called melodonium for many years which, at the time, was legal until January of 2016. She was banned for two years of tennis for this drug. Maria’s suspension was reduced by fifteen months after she had an appeal which allowed her to play tennis again in April of 2017.