Maria Sharapova Net Worth

An estimated $180 million is the net worth of former Russian professional tennis player Maria Sharapova. Even though she competes for Russia internationally, she has lived in the United States since 1994. On five separate occasions and 21 weeks in total, Sharapova has held the world number one ranking during her professional career. As a world-class tennis player, Mario Sharapova has been widely praised for the mental toughness she displayed throughout her long and successful career. Among women, her $39 million in prize money ranks third, but she earned nearly $300 million (before taxes) from sponsors and appearances.

Biography

A Russian SFSR native, Maria Sharapova was born on April 19, 1987 in Nyagan. Yuri Sharapov and Yelena Sharapov are both natives of Gomel, a city in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 prompted them to flee their homeland before Maria was born.

Her family relocated to Sochi from Moscow when she was three years old, and she was raised there by her grandmother. The first time she ever hit a tennis ball, she was just four years old. Since her father was friends with Aleksandr Kafelnikov, her son Yevgeny went on to win two major singles championships and become Russia’s first ever world number one tennis player, thanks in large part to Yuri’s friendship. Having received her first tennis racquet from Aleksandr at the tender age of four, Sharapova immediately began training with her father at a nearby park. The veteran Russian coach Yuri Yutkin, who saw Maria play and immediately noticed her “exceptional hand-eye coordination,” taught her how to play tennis in her first lesson with the player.

The IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where players like Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, and Anna Kournikova were trained, recommended Nick Bollettieri to Sharapova in 1993, when she was six years old and attending a Martina Navratilova tennis clinic in Moscow.

Yuri Sharapov borrowed the money he needed to travel to the United States with his daughter, neither of whom could speak English, in 1994. For two years, Sharapova’s mother was unable to join them because of visa restrictions. When Sharapova’s father arrived in Florida with only US$700 in savings, he worked a variety of low-paying jobs to pay for her tennis lessons until she was old enough to join the academy. Rick Macci was her primary trainer in the beginning. As a result of her signing with IMG in 1995, Sharapova was able to finally enroll at the academy when she was just 9 years old.

Maria Sharapova Net Worth: Career

With a victory at the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships in 2000, Sharapova made her mark on the tennis world. At the time, she was just 16 years old. She was considered a professional tennis player by the time she was 14. Starting out, she was limited in the number of professional matches she could participate in. She decided to return to junior tournaments after this. She was the youngest girl to ever make it to the finals of the Australian Junior Open. She was ranked sixth in the junior world rankings at the end of 2002, with three tournament victories to her name.

After a full season in 2003, Sharapova quickly climbed into the world’s top 50 rankings. Her first appearances at the Australian and French Opens were both a flop, as she lost all six of her matches. As a Wimbledon wildcard, she beat 11th seed Jelena Doki, her first win over a top-20 player, to advance to the fourth round, where she was defeated by Svetlana Kuznetsova in three sets. After winning the Japan Open Tennis Championships in September, Sharapova went on to win the Bell Challenge in Quebec City, her final WTA event of the season, to close out the season with two more titles. She received the WTA Newcomer of the Year award at the end of her first full season as a professional.

Maria Sharapova Net Worth: Endorsements

Motorola signed Sharapova as an endorser for their mobile phone line as soon as she won the 2004 Wimbledon Championships. Her endorsements of luxury watch and jewelry brands such as Tiffany & Co. and Tag Heuer were also notable. A Tiffany earring from the “Tiffany for Maria Sharapova” collection is given to Sharapova at each of the four major tournaments. In the summer of 2006, she starred in the Nike commercial “Pretty,” which won an award. In January 2007, she signed a sponsorship agreement with Tropicana and Gatorade, which lasted until 2009.

Sharapova appeared in several Canon USA PowerShot commercials in 2007. Many tennis video games have featured Sharapova as a playable character. The Top Spin, Virtua Tennis, and Grand Slam Tennis series are just a few examples. Sharapova decided to focus on building her name as a brand while she was out recovering from shoulder surgery. She began by meeting with her sponsors more extensively to further her brand. Sharapova signed a $70 million, eight-year contract extension with Nike in January of 2010. There has never been a more lucrative deal for a female athlete, dwarfing Venus Williams’ $43 million contract with Reebok.

Controversy

According to Sharapova’s admission on March 7th, 2016, she failed a drug test at the 2016 Australian Open due to an oversight. On January 1, 2016, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) added meldonium, an anti-ischemic drug commonly prescribed for heart conditions, to its list of prohibited substances. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has temporarily banned Sharapova from competitive tennis, with effect as of March 12th, 2016.

Relationships

Her engagement to Sasha Vujai, the Slovenian professional basketball player she had been dating since 2009, was announced in 2011. A year later, on August 31st, 2012, Maria Sharapova confirmed that the couple had broken up and ended their engagement. Grigor Dimitrov, a Bulgarian tennis player, was Sharapova’s boyfriend from 2012 to 2015.

Alexander Gilkes, a British businessman, has been dating Maria Sharapova since 2018. Sharapova and Gilkes will announce their engagement in December 2020. The couple had their first child in April 2022.

Maria Sharapova Net Worth: Property

All net worth information is collected and calculated from public information. When possible, we also incorporate private tips and comments submitted by the celebrities or their representatives. While we do our best to ensure that our figures are correct, they are only estimates unless otherwise stated. We welcome any refinements or criticism using the comment section below.