Five-time Grand Slam champion and current world number four Maria Sharapova has announced that she is in the process of writing an autobiography. With the help of Rich Cohen, a writer who wrote one of her favourite autobiographies about Jerry Weintraub, Sharapova will write a book dedicated to her upbringing and professional career.

“Back in December, I walked out of a casual book meeting and got inspired to live through my journey on paper,” Sharapova said in a Facebook post published Thursday. “A few of my written paragraphs went around publishing offices and I received the unexpected honour to work with Farrar, Straus and Giroux on my very first book.”

In the same post, the Russian talked about how excited she was to share her ‘real’ and ‘raw’ story in the form of writing, one of her many passions ever since she was a little girl. As a young girl, Sharapova picked up a racquet for the first time at the age of four and began hitting against the wall hours at a time. After realizing his daughter’s potential, Yuri Sharapov consulted someone who knows their way around a tennis court — none other than 18-time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova.

After Navratilova recommended that Sharapova join the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in the United States while at an exhibition match in Moscow, Yuri Sharapov and his wife Yelena decided to make the necessary sacrifices to help their daughter fulfill her potential. With money tight and visa restrictions, Yelena Sharapova was unable to travel with her husband and daughter to the United States. Yuri Sharapov, who did travel with Maria, flew overseas with just $700 USD, and decided to work low-paying jobs in order to fund his daughter’s expenses at the academy. Sharapov would work late into the night, which left Sharapova alone for most of her first two years in the United States before her mother was able to join her.

Those sacrifices paid off early as at the age of 17, the Russian shocked the tennis world when she won her maiden Grand Slam singles title at Wimbledon, defeating Serena Williams in the final. That title was the first of five of that caliber, and that number could go up in the coming years.

According to Sharapova, with the help of her team of writers, they have begun to speak with people who played a pivotal role in her development as a person and a tennis player. One might expect some of these people to be her parents, past coaches and friends and family who all helped in some way to shape her illustrious career that all players admire today. With the help and expertise of her team, Sharapova is aiming for a 2017 release for her memoir.

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About the author
Max Gao
Max Gao is a sports writer specializing in tennis and the Toronto Blue Jays, who has also written on the Rogers Cup website as a guest contributor in the past.