Tennis sensation Maria Sharapova is known not just for her power strokes on the court but also for her business ventures and philanthropist activities off-court. Despite being one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Sharapova has quite a few secrets that her fans might not be very aware of. In her 2017 autobiography “Unstoppable: My Life so Far”, Sharapova debunks quite a few myths about herself, including her name!

That’s right, Maria Sharapova or Maria Yuryevna Sharapova is not her real name. It is a name she took on owing to the American accent that did not do justice to her real name. They mispronounced her name often and connected her to a character in a popular sitcom at the time, and Maria hated it! This is why she swept her real name under the rug and started calling herself Maria Sharapova, the name the world looks up to today.

Maria Sharapova or “Masha” Sharapova?

In her book Unstoppable, Sharapova relates many unknown and unheard incidents from her childhood. In all of them, her father Yuri plays a central part. While talking about her first coach back in Russia, Yuri Yudkin, Maria shares the story of her real identity. While she explains how Yudkin was a feared and respected coach, she also boasts of how he appreciated her talent from Day 1.

He told her father that she was something “unique” but beyond that, it depended on her to make it or break it. “Does Masha have it or not? That is what we will find out.”

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Maria then reveals how her name changed from Masha to Maria. She says, “Maria is not my real name. I was christened Masha. But there is no good match for Masha in English…” She then talks about how the native English-speaking people called her “Marsha”. They associated her with a character named Marcia from Brady Bunch.

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This she says, “…I hated…so I got out in front of that, and told people to call me Maria.”

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At an age so young, Maria’s strength to make a name for herself is inspiring to say the least. Coming from Russia, she struggled with many facets to make it in America. From facing humiliation at the Rick Macci Tennis Academy, to having her name mispronounced, Sharapova struggled to build an identity for herself in her former years. A hurdle, needless to say, that she has successfully overcome.