Sharapova, 28, in Los Angeles this spring. Photographer: Ture Lillegraven/Bloomberg Pursuits; Styling: Petra Flannery; Hair: Sascha Breuer; Makeup: Kara Yoshimoto Bua
Maria Sharapova is in a pretty good mood for someone who might be about to lose a tournament. Itâs mid-March and sheâs just made the two-hour drive from her beachfront home in Los Angeles to the desert town of Indian Wells, Calif., the site of the BNP Paribas Open. The tournament is owned by Larry Ellison, the software mogul and seventh-richest person in the world. In the past five years, through $100 million of upgrades and the help of sponsors such as Rolex and Emirates Airline, heâs turned it into one of the premier stops on the menâs and womenâs tour.
âItâs a bit more personal for me to come here,â Sharapova, 28, says of Indian Wells. âI have a lot of friends and family who come to watch.â The exception is her Pomeranian, Dolce, who stays at home because of the dry conditions. âItâs not good for his hair.â
At the prematch press conference, Sharapova, in black-and-white exercise pants and a billowy gray tank top, handles questions gracefully. Sheâs held steady this year in the No.â2 spot in the womenâs rankings. Number Two. Few people in the history of the game have struck the ball as cleanly as she does from both sides of the court, and at 6 foot 2, she has the reach and athleticism to thrive on both hard and grass courts. And yet sheâs spent her career in the shadow of Serena Williams, the No.â1 player in the worldâperhaps of all time. Williams, 33, has boycotted the Indian Wells tournament since 2001, after being booed relentlessly during the final, an incident that she and her family considered racially motivated. Now sheâs made her return, and the tournamentâs organizers, the media, and the spectators are falling all over themselves to make amends. Sharapova is playing Williamsâs understudy, again. As usual, she insists that it doesnât bother her. âYou want to play against the best, and she is the best,â Sharapova says of Williams.
Like Williams, who grew up playing tennis in Compton, Calif., Sharapova had a hard upbringing. Her parents fled Siberia four months after the Chernobyl explosion, as radiation began to wash over their town of Nyagan. During the next few years, Sharapova bounced around Russia. When she was just 6 years old, Martina Navratilova spotted her on a tennis court in the resort city of Sochi and recommended that the youngster gather her things and head off to the Nick Bollettieri academy in Florida. âThe only thing I remember is packing up my books,â Sharapova said in an ESPN documentary about her childhood. âI told my mom I wanted to make sure I have a piece of my country with me.â
âI'm not going to go home without giving it another chance. That's just not who I am. ... I'm a competitor.â
Her mother couldnât get a visa, so Sharapova and her father, Yuri, started their new life alone. During Sharapovaâs adolescence, her father worked several jobs at a timeâdoing construction, sweeping the floors in grocery storesâto try to pay the academy tuition. Because of his schedule, they rarely saw each other during the day, with Yuri leaving meals out for his daughter to warm up. âI spent a lot of time on my own,â she told ESPN.
But their plan worked, and by the early 2000s, Sharapova was a sensation. She had the looks of Russian compatriot and onetime phenom Anna Kournikova, and an even better game. She also had a determination that Kournikova could never seem to muster. Sharapova crushed powerful line drives from the back of the court, emphasizing the authority of her shots with an exuberant grunt. At just 17, she beat Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final. A U.S. Open title followed soon thereafter. Sheâs since won the Australian Open twice and the French Open once, bringing her total Grand Slam wins to five.
It seemed almost certain that Sharapova and Williams would end up archenemies, trading major opens in the style of John McEnroe and Björn Borg or Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. But Sharapova beat Williams in their next faceoff and then never again. Their head-to-head record is 17-2 in Williamsâs favor, with Sharapova losing their last 16 meetings. The lopsided run is partly a result of a series of major shoulder injuries Sharapova had in the mid-2000s that weakened her once spectacular serve. This left her without the weapon she needed to gain an early edge in matches, to maintain momentum in the middle, and to rescue her when she was down. âYes, I havenât won against her many times, but if Iâm getting to the stage of competing against someone like Serena, Iâm doing something well,â she said after losing to Williams in this yearâs Australian Open final. âIâm setting up a chance to try to beat her, and it hasnât happened. Iâm not going to go home without giving it another chance. Thatâs just not who I am and not what I was raised to be. Iâm a competitor.â
Although Williams is older, Sharapova is racing not necessarily against her competitor, but against her own body. In April she injured her leg, causing her to pull out of Russiaâs Fed Cup team, and many are wondering when she might retire. Williams, by contrast, continues to break records. With 19 career Grand Slam titles, sheâs tied for the third most of all time. Sheâs recently had the second-longest winning streak of her career, with 27 in a row. If she keeps it up, Williams could snag every major title this season.
Second place has its consolations, though, especially if you are tall and blond. Sharapova is the highest-paid female athlete in the world, according to Forbes data, and sheâs topped the list for the past decade. She made $22 million from endorsements in 2014, including an eight-year, $70 million deal with Nike, a five-year contract with Evian, and deals with Cole Haan, Tag Heuer, and other brands. Williams, who also has a deal with Nike, as well as one with Gatorade, lags behind by more than $10 million each year.