Ivanović’s mother, Dragana who is a lawyer, attends all of her daughter’s matches. Her father, Miroslav, a self-employed businessman, attends as many events as he possibly can. Ana has a younger brother, Miloš, with whom she loves to play basketball. Other hobbies include shopping, watching movies and playing Sudoku. She chooses not to have a permanent coach. Aside from her tennis career, Ivanović also studies finance at a university in Belgrade, and Spanish in her spare time. Her inspiration to begin playing was Monica Seles, and she also admires Roger Federer.

On September 8, 2007, Ivanović became a UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia, alongside Aleksandar Đorđević and Emir Kusturica. She takes a special interest in the fields of education and child protection. Ivanović visited a primary school in Serbia during her inauguration and said: “I’m also looking forward to going into the classroom and meeting many kids.”

Ivanović is a fan of all sport clubs competing under the name of Partizan Belgrade.

Ivanović is friends with former doubles partner Maria Kirilenko, as well as other professional tennis players Daniela Hantuchová, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Sanja Ančić, Rafael Nadal, Tatiana Golovin and fellow Serbians Novak Djokovic (whom she has known since the age of 5) and Janko Tipsarević .

Ivanović confirmed in November 2008 that she was romantically involved with Spanish tennis player Fernando Verdasco however, the relationship apparently ended in January 2009.

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In 2006, she was selected to be the face of Adidas by Stella McCartney tennis range, designed by noted British fashion designer Stella McCartney. Since the 2006 Australian Open, Kirilenko has played in adidas clothing and footwear designed by Stella McCartney at all upcoming tournaments.

Maria Kirilenko started showing a passion towards tennis at age 5, but it was difficult to get the practice in while she was attending school. Her father enrolled her in a tennis school, and hours of fierce training started to pay off as she won several tournaments.

When Kirilenko was twelve years old, an Honored Master of sports, Elena Brioukhovets, saw her while training. All the next year Elena watched Maria making progress and then offered to work together with her. A three-year program was made and a special team was selected. In less than three years Maria became the number one in her age group and the number two in the group under eighteen. The well-known tennis-players Yevgeni Kafelnikov, Andrei Olhovskiy and Max Mirnyi, who had created an organization supporting young tennis-players, helped Kirilenko to arrange her training-process and to attend tournaments.

In 2002 Kirilenko became one of the youngest winners of the Canadian Open and the US Open Junior Tournaments.

Since September 2002 Kirilenko started participating in WTA events. She made a lot of progress in WTA events but was setback by injury in 2004 and dropped down the rankings, whilst missing out on valuable experience. At the end of 2005 she had climbed right up the rankings and won her first title in Beijing. She has been recognized as one of the up and coming players of 2006 and, despite being off her best form during the Summer, she has broken into the top 20 for the first time on June 12th, 2006.

Kirilenko made her debut for Russia at the nation-based Fed Cup tournament on 22/23 April 2006 on the World Group Quarter-Final tie against Belgium. Maria lost a singles rubber against ’05 US Open champion Kim Clijsters and won her doubles rubber against multiple major champion Justine Henin-Hardenne and the same Kim Clijsters partnering Dinara Safina. Russia ended up losing 3–2.

At the 2006 US Open, Kirilenko received the 20th seed of the tournament and reached the 3rd Round, eventually being defeated by Aravane Rezai.

In January 2007, she advanced to the third round of the 2007 Australian Open, before being defeated by third-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, immediately after which she competed in the 2007 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, where she advanced to the second round upsetting #15 Shahar Peer of Israel, before being defeated by Ai Sugiyama. She then competed in the Dubai Tennis Championships in Dubai, where she reached the second round, before losing in a close match to Daniela Hantuchova 6–2 4–6 6–7 (4/7).

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Sharapova used the Prince Tour Diablo for part of 2003 and then used several different Prince racquets until the US Open. She gave the racquet she used in the 2004 Wimbledon final to Regis Philbin when taping Live with Regis and Kelly. Sharapova began using the Prince Shark OS at that tournament and had a major part in the production of the Shark racquet. She then switched to the Prince O3 White racquet in January 2006. Because of Sharapova’s various shoulder injuries, she switched to the Prince O3 Speedport Black Longbody in July 2008.

In June 2007, Forbes magazine listed her as the highest-paid female athlete in the world, with annual earnings of over US$23 million. (CBS, the American television network, reported in August 2006 that the figure is over US$26 million.) The majority is made from endorsements and sponsorships. In a later interview, she said,

“You know, one of the greatest things about being an athlete and, you know, making money is realizing that you can help, you know, help the world, and especially children, who I absolutely love working with.”

In 2005 during a photo shoot for Canon, a lewd photo was taken of Sharapova without her knowledge by Japanese advertising agency Dentsu. The company currently has a lawsuit related to this incident.

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Sharapova has won three Grand Slam singles titles. In 2004, at the age of 17, she won Wimbledon, defeating Serena Williams in the final. She has since won the 2006 US Open, defeating Justine Henin in the final, and the 2008 Australian Open, defeating Ana Ivanovic in the final.

As of July 2008, she is the world’s highest-paid female athlete. She is currently coached by her father, Yuri Sharapov, and former player Michael Joyce.

Sharapova is a power baseliner, with power, depth, and angles on her groundstrokes. Instead of using a traditional volley or overhead smash, she often prefers to hit a powerful “swinging” volley when approaching the net or attacking lobs. Sharapova is thought to have good speed around the court, especially considering her height. At the beginning of the 2008 season, some observers noted that Sharapova had developed her game, showing improved movement and footwork and the addition of a drop shot and sliced backhand to her repertoire of shots.

Sharapova’s preferred surfaces are the fast-playing hard and grass because her game is not as well-suited to the slower-playing clay. She lacks confidence in her ability to move and slide on this surface and once described herself as like a “cow on ice” after a match on clay. Her limitations on this surface are reflected in her career results, as she did not win a WTA tour title on clay until April 2008 (despite having won 18 titles on other surfaces) and because the French Open is the only Grand Slam singles title she has not yet won.

Sharapova’s first and second serve are powerful. She is often able to produce an ace or a service winner or provoke a weak reply from her opponent, which allows her to take control of the rally immediately. A serious shoulder injury in early 2007, however, reduced the effectiveness of her serve for several months, as she routinely produced eight to ten double faults in many of her matches during this period. She later changed her service motion to a more compacted backswing (as opposed to her traditional elongated backswing) in an attempt to put less stress on her shoulder, but she nevertheless periodically experienced problems with her serve throughout the rest of the year, most notably producing 12 double faults in her third-round loss at the US Open. Her serve appeared to be more effective at the 2008 Australian Open, as she produced just 17 double faults in seven matches while winning the tournament. Her serving problems resurfaced, however, during the spring of 2008, as she produced 43 double faults in just four matches at the French Open and eight double faults during her second round loss at Wimbledon. Observers, including Tracy Austin, believe that when Sharapova experiences problems with her serve, she often loses confidence in the rest of her game, and as a result, produces more unforced errors and generally plays more tentatively.

Sharapova is known for on-court “grunting,” reaching 101 decibels (near the volume of a police siren) during a match at Wimbledon in 2005.

Early life

Sharapova was born in 1987 to Yuri and Elena, ethnic Russians, in the town of Nyagan in Siberia, Russia. Previously her parents had lived in Gomel, Belarus, but were compelled to move after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.

When Sharapova was two, the family moved to Sochi. There, Sharapova’s father befriended Aleksandre Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to become a Grand Slam champion. Aleksandre gave Sharapova her first tennis racket at the age of four and subsequently, she and her father began regular practices in the local park. At the age of six, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navratilova, who noted Sharapova was talented but required professional training, recommending the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. Sharapova and her father, neither of whom could speak English, moved to Florida in 1994. Because of visa restrictions, Sharapova’s mother could not originally move with them, though she eventually joined them two years later. Sharapova’s father was forced to take a variety of low-paid jobs to fund her lessons, including washing plates, and, until the age of 12, she was transported to the academy each day on the handlebars of Yuri’s bicycle as they could not afford any other method of transport. Sharapova developed rapidly at the academy and began playing junior tournaments.

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This is one of those stories that makes you shake your head in disbelief — first, that it happened, and second, that you didn’t get in on it in time. Seems the lovely Wimbledon champ Maria Sharapova put herself — well, a date with herself, anyway — up for auction at a charity tennis tournament. The winning bid was $10,000, which seems a bit below market value. Lobbing up the awkwardness quotient is the fact that Ms. Sharapova’s boyfriend apparently got outbid for the date. Think that was a comfortable ride home?

Oh, and one other thing — Ms. Sharapova took in $26 million last year, making her the world’s best-paid female athlete. That means that for her, a $10,000 bid is the equivalent of getting taken out for a McDonald’s Extra Value Meal. She’s lovin’ it!

Now, in auctioning off the mealtime services of a beautiful athlete, some may see crass, thinly-veiled sexism. Me, I see opportunity. We’ve got ourselves a bit of a financial crisis in America these days, right? Well, if Ms. Sharapova is willing to let herself go for a mere ten large, how much do you think Tom Brady could fetch? Natalie Gulbis? Dale Earnhardt Jr.? Derek Jeter?

Time to think outside the box here, people. We’ve given our athletes so much — is it so wrong to ask them to start giving back in return?

Maria Sharapova could be yours for a cool $10,000 – Y! Sports Blogs – Yahoo! Sports