Maria was born April 19, 1987 in Nyagan, a town in western Siberia, where her parents, Yuri and Yelena, had fled from Belarus a year earlier to avoid radiation from Chernobyl. An only child, Maria was encouraged by her parents to try everything, from dancing and music to athletics. She discovered tennis after her fourth birthday, when a family friend—Kafelnikov’s father—gave her one of his son’s old Dunlop tennis racquets. The die was cast. Maria hardly ever let that cut-down, cracked, destrung racquet out of her hand from the moment she picked it up. Every day she hit balls against the side of the house.Maria Sharapova (Masha) has lived in the United States since poignant there at the age of seven but retains her Russian social responsibility. She has a home in Manhattan Beach, California and in early 2008, a penthouse flat in Netanya, Israel.
