Tennis Special Report: Maria Sharapova and her endorsement stories
Born on April 19, 1987 in the city of Nyagan, the Russian tennis sensation Maria Yuryevna Sharapova is a fifteen ranked tennis ace from the women’s side. The former number one Maria has so far captured three Grand Slam trophies all through her career, namely the grass court Grand Slam title back in 2004, the United States Open trophy back in 2006, as well as the hard court Australian Open crown back in 2008. The right handed Sharapova also ended the Grand Slam 2007 Australian Open tournament as runner up.
Apart from her on court appearances, the twenty three years old Sharapova is a very prominent public figure, as she has been working in a couple of modelling assignments from the very start of her professional life, such as Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Moreover, she also appears in a couple of television advertisements on and off such as Prince, Nike, Canon and a lot more, apart from being the ambassador of several fashions outlets, particularly Cole Haan.
Her fame and popularity can be analyzed from the fact that she was the most goggled female athlete on Yahoo back in 2005, as well as in 2008.
Maria's career success as well as her fame has helped her in getting a couple of commercial endorsements throughout her professional life. The Russian was listed as one of the top fifty prettiest female stars in the world by People, back in 2005. The next year, Sharapova was named as the sexiest sportsmen of the world on the fourth occasion in a row by Maxim. She also posed for a photo shoot while wearing a s**y bikini for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition back in 2006.
In an opinion poll held by one of the magazines called FHM, Sharapova turned out to be the seventh most preferable women, in terms of beauty as well as possessions.
As far as her rackets are concerned, the 1.88 meters tall Sharapova used the Prince Triple Threat Hornet during the 2003 season. Later on, she made use of a variety of Prince Rackets.
Sharapova gifted the racquet she played with, at the grass court Grand Slam tournament back in 2004 to Regis Philbin when recording Live with Regis and Kelly. The beautiful Russian started using the Prince Shark OS at that championship and had played an important role in the invention of the Shark racquet.
A magazine called, Forbes named her as the most expensive women athlete all around the world about three years ago, with earnings of around US$26 million on annual basis.
In one of her interviews, the 23 years old pretty Sharapova said that, "The best part of being a sportsmen is that people love you and so you get an opportunity to work in a couple of advertisements and earn a lot of money that you can utilize in helping the man kind and as far as I am concerned, I try my level best to help the poor children, who I love the most,” Sharapova added.
Apart from sponsorships and endorsements, the Russian tennis ace has also been showcased in a couple of tennis related games with faces like Venus Williams, Daniela Hantuchova, Anna Kournikova as well as Lindsay Davenport. A few of them includes the Grand Slam tennis, Virtua Tennis series as well as the Top spin series.
Sharapova while commenting on her tag as the most expensive athlete back in 2006 said, “"You know it’s something that is never enough.”
In more recent news, this season back in the month of January, Maria had once again signed a contract with Nike for almost $70 Million. This is the highest paid deal ever for a female athlete that also surpassed the record of the American tennis ace, Venus Williams of $43 Million with a shoes company called Reebok.
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