Moscow (RIA Novosti sports commentator Mikhail Smirnov)

An 18 year-old Maria Sharapova has done what no Soviet or Russian athlete managed to achieve: she has led the WTA ratings and become the first in the world, having been the best in the last 52 weeks of WTA tours. Indicatively, Maria has become the 15th tennis player to reach the top WTA ratings during the 30 years of their existence.

If even the most talented producer decided to write a re-make of the classic Cinderella, he could merely give an account of Masha's biography that abounds in incredible turns. Here are some episodes: her parents' departure from Gomel, a city near Chernobyl; Masha's birth on April 19, 1987, almost exactly a year after the nuclear disaster, in a small Siberian town of Nyagan; the family's move to Sochi, a Black Sea resort city and a native city of Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who later became the first Russian man to top the world ATP ratings, and who gave little Masha her first rocket; a meeting with legendary Martina Navratilova who gave a tennis master class in Moscow. It was Martina who discovered talent in a 6 year-old girl and convinced Masha's father, Yury Sharapov, to send the girl to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. Having barely raised money for the air tickets, Sharapov and his daughter, flew into uncertainty across the Atlantic.

Nobody expected them at the Tennis Academy where such celebrities as Andre Agassi and Jim Courier, Monica Seles and Anna Kurnikova mastered their techniques at different times. Although it was not possible to see Nick Bollettieri without prior appointment, Yury Sharapov somehow persuaded him and other coaches to see his daughter play. Nick Bollettieri, who himself had once made a fantastic transformation from a ranger whose life hang by a thread into a successful sports manager, felt that a 7 year-old Russian girl was extremely talented. Masha was accepted by the Academy and her Dad went to work at a construction site. Every day he would walk from a studio that he rented to the Tennis Academy to see his daughter. Yelena, his wife and Masha's Mom, was denied permission to leave Russia, and joined them only two years later.

Photo: AFP

Masha's incredibly strong character without which she would have never got to the top, revealed itself very early. She was mastering tennis techniques in a foreign country, practically without parents. But she was prepared to overcome any ordeals and tolerate the austere conditions of the Tennis Academy because success in tennis became her number one goal in life.

The results were not long in coming. At 15 Maria reached the junior tour finals at Australia Open and Wimbledon, where her rivals were two or three years her senior. She even won her first three tournaments of the ITF series. Many hastened to call her a "second Kurnikova". But Maria did not consider this flattering. She proved very fast that tennis ranked first among her priorities, whereas fashion and business came next, as distinct from Kurnikova, who had never won a single in any tour.

In 2002, Sport Magazine included Maria into a list of athletes who would lead the world sports in the 21st century. In 2003, she won two big WTA tours and ranked among the top 16 players at Wimbledon, having jumped from the 153rd to the 32nd step in the world rankings. In early 2004, Maria ranked among the top twenty. She then reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, and won the tour in Birmingham in singles and doubles. Then came the turn of Wimbledon. Many are dreaming of a victory there but very few achieve it. A victory at Wimbledon usually requires several goes, but Maria scored success at the second attempt, surpassing in this respect such celebrities as Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, or Martina Hingis.

Now she has reached the very top. What comes next?

Maria will have to go through the trial of fame. Considering her character we can expect our Russian champion to pass the test with flying colors. Right after her triumph at Wimbledon Maria said that she had to work a lot in order to progress as a tennis player, and to win in every tour. First of all, I should improve my physical condition, she said.

Maria will also have to learn to deal with envy that is particularly manifest in the moments of triumph like that.

For our part, we should learn to be more considerate to such talents, not to gloat over their setbacks or jeer at the screaming at the height of tension that in case of Sharapova, reaches 100 decibels, as some meticulous experts have calculated.

If we do that, such victories will not be perceived as a fairy tale or as an American dream come true.

Reproduced with permission from RIA Novosti