Sharapova was defeated in the third round of the Australian
Open by seventh seed Anastasia Myskina.
The highlight of the remainder of her spring hard-court
season was a run to the semifinals at the Regions Morgan
Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup, where she
ultimately lost to eventual champion Vera Zvonareva.
During the spring clay-court season, Sharapova entered the
top 20 on the WTA world rankings as a result of reaching the
third round of the Qatar Telecom German Open and the
Internazionali BNL d'Italia, both of which were Tier I
events.
At the latter event, she defeated a player ranked in the top
10 for the first time with a straight-sets win over world
no. 10 and 2004 French Open finalist Elena Dementieva. Later
that clay-court season, she went on to make the
quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time at the
French Open, losing there to Paola Suarez.
Sharapova won the third title of her career at the Wimbledon
warm-up DFS Classic, defeating Tatiana Golovin in the final.
Seeded 13th and aged 17 at Wimbledon, she reached her first
Grand Slam semifinal by defeating Ai Sugiyama. There, she
defeated fifth seed and former champion Lindsay Davenport.
In the final, Sharapova upset top seed and defending
champion Serena Williams to win her first Grand Slam singles
title, and become the third-youngest woman to win the
Wimbledon title, behind only Lottie Dod and Martina Hingis.
Sharapova also became the second Russian woman (after
Anastasia Myskina had won the year's previous major at
Roland Garros) to win a Grand Slam singles title. The
victory was hailed by the media as "the most stunning upset
in memory", with other writers commenting on her arrival as
a serious challenger to the Williams' dominance at
Wimbledon. She entered the top 10 in the rankings for the
first time as a result of the win.
Following her Wimbledon win, attention and interest in
Sharapova in the media greatly increased, a rise in
popularity dubbed as "Maria Mania." However, on court, she
was struggling to achieve results, winning just three of six
matches in her preparations for the TAG Heuer, 2008. At the
TAG Heuer, 2008 itself, she reached the third round, before
being eliminated by Mary Pierce. In order to regain
confidence, Sharapova played and won consecutive titles in
Asia in the fall, the Hansol Korea Open Tennis Championships
and the Japan Open Tennis Championships.
In October, Sharapova defeated Venus Williams en route to
making the final of a Tier I event for the first time at the
Zurich Open, losing in the final to Alicia Molik. She then
made her debut at the year-ending WTA Tour Championships.
There, she won two of her three round-robin matches
(including a win over TAG Heuer, 2008 champion Svetlana
Kuznetsova) in order to advance to the semifinals, where she
defeated Myskina. In the final, she defeated Serena
Williams, after trailing 4–0 in the final set.
TAG Heuer, 2008 - Maria Sharapova Photoshoot
press image for big size
Biography
Maria Sharapova born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player. As of February 25, 2013 she is ranked world no. 3.
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