We are back where it all began: 5500 34th Street West, Bradenton, Florida. This is where six-year-old Masha Sharapova and her father Yuri turned up 24 years ago, begging to be given a chance at the tennis club for rich kids run by the legendary coach Nick Bollettieri. You can still smell the privilege. A security man at the imposing gates looks at my two carrier bags and assumes I’m homeless: “Excuse me, what are you doing here?” I tell him I’m here to interview Sharapova. He looks me up and down with thinly disguised contempt, and asks if I can move away from the entrance. “Or at least hide your bags. The first thing our guests can see as they drive in is your bags.” I begin to see how alien this must have felt for the Sharapovas, who arrived in America armed with only $700 and a dream. How times change. After winning a career grand slam (all four major titles: Wimbledon, and the US, Australian and French Opens, the latter twice), 11 consecutive years as the highest paid female athlete on the planet with total earnings estimated by Forbes at $285m, Sharapova is back at the IMG… Read full this story
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Maria Sharapova on failing that drug test: ‘I felt trapped, tricked’ have 321 words, post on www.theguardian.com at September 9, 2017. This is cached page on CuBird. If you want remove this page, please contact us.