Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The rise, and fall, and rise again of tennis sensation Maria Sharapova
In the middle of the night, a father and his daughter step off a Greyhound bus in Florida and head straight to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. They ring the bell, though no one is expecting them. They don t speak English. They ve arrived from Russia with only $700 and the conviction that this six-year-old will be the next tennis star. Surprisingly, they are right.
Young Maria Sharapova went on to become one of the best, most famous, and highest-paid athletes. At seventeen, she won Wimbledon. At eighteen, she was ranked number one. To date, she has won five Grand Slams. Her stardom spills off the court to fashion, philanthropy, food. But at the peak of her popularity, Sharapova faced a new challenge, after testing positive for a banned drug. The backlash was shocking sponsors fled, fans berated her, and she received a two-year suspension. Despite successfully appealing her sentence, she still faced the battle of maintaining her eminence on the court and her place in fans hearts. In this gripping autobiography, Sharapova traces her precarious beginnings in Siberia to her controversial doping ban. The same way she plays tennis, she tells her story with a no-holds-barred attitude, fierce and provocative. Sharapova s story transcends the sports genre this is an inspiring tale of gritty persistence, pulsing with fearlessness and candor, utterly unforgettable.
"
Synopsis
*One of The Boston Globe's Best Books of 2017*
From Maria Sharapova, one of our fiercest female athletes, the captivating--and candid--story of her rise from nowhere to tennis stardom, and the unending fight to stay on top.
In 2004, in a stunning upset against the two-time defending champion Serena Williams, seventeen-year-old Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon, becoming an overnight sensation. Out of virtual anonymity, she launched herself onto the international stage. "Maria Mania" was born. Sharapova became a name and face recognizable worldwide. Her success would last: she went on to hold the number-one WTA ranking multiple times, to win four more Grand Slam tournaments, and to become one of the highest-grossing female athletes in the world.
And then--at perhaps the peak of her career--Sharapova came up against the toughest challenge yet: during the 2016 Australian Open, she was charged by the ITF with taking the banned substance meldonium, only recently added to the ITF's list. The resulting suspension would keep her off the professional courts for fifteen months--a frighteningly long time for any athlete. The media suggested it might be fateful.
But Sharapova's career has always been driven by her determination and by her dedication to hard work. Her story doesn't begin with the 2004 Wimbledon championship, but years before, in a small Russian town, where as a five-year-old she played on drab neighborhood courts with precocious concentration. It begins when her father, convinced his daughter could be a star, risked everything to get them to Florida, that sacred land of tennis academies. It begins when the two arrived with only seven hundred dollars and knowing only a few words of English. From that, Sharapova scraped together one of the most influential sports careers in history.
Here, for the first time, is the whole story, and in her own words. Sharapova's is an unforgettable saga of dedication and fortune. She brings us inside her pivotal matches and illuminates the relationships that have shaped her--with coaches, best friends, boyfriends, and Yuri, her coach, manager, father, and most dedicated fan, describing with honesty and affection their oft-scrutinized relationship. She writes frankly about the suspension. As Sharapova returns to the professional circuit, one thing is clear: the ambition to win that drove her from the public courts of Russia to the manicured lawns of Wimbledon has not diminished.
Sharapova's Unstoppable is a powerful memoir, resonant in its depiction of the will to win--whatever the odds.
Synopsis
*One of The Boston Globe's Best Books of 2017*
From the five-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova, the candid, captivating story of her rise to tennis stardom
In the middle of the night, a father and his daughter step off a Greyhound bus in Florida and head straight to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. They ring the bell, though no one is expecting them and they don't speak English. The two have arrived from Russia with only seven hundred dollars and the conviction that this six-year-old will be the next tennis star. Amazingly, they are right.
Young Maria Sharapova went on to win Wimbledon at just seventeen years old, in an astonishing upset against the reigning champion Serena Williams--the match that kicked off their legendary rivalry and placed Sharapova on the international stage. At eighteen, she reached the number one WTA ranking for the first time, and has held that ranking many times since. In this gripping autobiography, the five-time Grand Slam winner recounts the story of her phenomenal rise to success, narrated with the same no-holds-barred, fiercely provocative attitude that characterizes her tennis game. Full of thrilling, insightful episodes from her beginnings in Siberia, from career-defining games, and from her recent fight to get back on the court, Unstoppable is an inspiring tale of persistence, pulsing with fearlessness and candor. Sharapova's is an utterly unforgettable story.