It’s all sweet on and off court in the world of Maria Sharapova

MARIA Sharapova remains among the world’s best on the court but she has few peers off it

Russian glamour girl Maria Sharapova promotes her Sugarpova Pinkberry candy topping at Selfridges in London this week. Picture: Getty Images

“MINE’S a Sassy,” Maria Sharapova says, beckoning towards the juice bar. I had tried “Silly”, a mix of spinach and cucumber, so “Sassy” sounds good. It’s yellow rather than green; more fruit than vegetable. Still, all good stuff and sold in the store that the Wimbledon champion of 2004 purchased a couple of months ago, has had made over to her personal specifications and is at the heart of SW19’s main tennis thoroughfare.

Sharapova has always taken the breath away and this afternoon, as the sun glints off the store fronts in the High Street, is no different. Have 10 years really elapsed since a 17-year-old from Siberia bestrode Centre Court, defeating Serena Williams in straight sets to win her first grand slam tournament, and decided that her outfit for the official shoot was not up to scratch so returned to her rented home to change into something more suitable?

It was, perhaps, only to be expected that, a decade on from such a head-turning victory, she would own her place in the town.

Even back then — when most kids would hold the Wimbledon dish in a singlet just so long as they had won it — Maria was thinking differently, smartly. In terms of tennis entrepreneurship she has no equal, yet harbours playing ambitions of a mighty sort, to the extent that she won the French Open for the second time in three years 12 days ago and is among those highly favoured at the championships.

“Sometimes I think that Wimbledon happened so long ago, but when I do have a flashback, a time in my career when I need to reflect on it, the memory seems very fresh in my mind,” she says. “It was the very beginning of my professional career and such a learning experience. It was an incredible process for a very young girl in that atmosphere.

“I started right out in the corner on the left. To think I went from there and ended on Centre, first sinking to my knees, then holding the trophy was incredible.

“In those circumstances, the sport doesn’t give you a choice, but to grow up very fast and to mature, you see the responsibilities we have as athletes. It’s not just about the walking on and off and playing for the two or whatever hours it is, it’s everything in between. You learn quickly you have to be as professional off the court as you are on it, which not everyone understands at the beginning.

“I am very thankful for the influential people in my life, especially my parents. I was surprised and shocked but I worked for it since I was four years old. I treated it as if I belonged there because if I hadn’t, I don’t think I would have had a chance, or the aura.”

That has never faded, the sense of being the one who — no matter the opponent or the stage — is the one they have come to see. It is how Sharapova has always deported herself, not an air she cultivated but one that naturally grew around this kid who arrived in Florida at the age of seven with her father Yuri, who carried a few dollars and a bag replete with short racquets and tall dreams.

“I heard people say it must be great to get the monkey off your back and win a grand slam at such a young age, but on the other hand you have so much more to do right off the bat,” she says. “You have to carry that weight and you have to back that up and it’s always on your mind. Then two years later being in one of the biggest stadiums any professional athlete plays in and able to beat Justine Henin in the final was really a big step.” She had conquered New York City. The billboards carried a single image.

Armed with a natural talent carrying a natural beauty, Sharapova’s manager, Max Eisenbud, was in the position many of his ilk would envy. He still is. It has been a case of beating off more companies than he knew existed and making sure that his client was engaged at the highest and most appropriate end of the market.

“I was into exploring things, I like being creative,” she says. “At 17, I didn’t know what my definite passion was. I remember going to Nike’s headquarters and sitting with big-shot designers discussing business plans. I didn’t have much of a voice, but I knew it was cool.”

Walk into the Sharapova Candy Bar and examples of her artistic bent are everywhere. She designed the “candy forest”, where bags of “Smitten”, “Quirky” and “Sporty” adorn the branches. “It's a pretty quiet town usually and I want coming in here to be more than just coming in buying a pack of candy and leaving. I want people to come home and think it was fun there, because that is what candy is all about. Two months ago, we found the lot we wanted to buy, we talked to the landlord and what could we do with it, and built a box within a box. It went up in three days.”

You don’t mess around? “No. I like to get things done. I make up my mind pretty fast and I don’t dwell on the decisions once they’re made. From the start of this, it was taking a chance, a category that we weren’t familiar with, but everyone loves candy.” In 2013, 1.4 million bags were sold. A range of Sugarpova sleepwear is in the pipeline.

None of this would be possible if she were not a champion on the court, too. She has 32 career titles, five of them grand slams, the latest of which brought her back to her knees in Paris. “What I’m most passionate about is going against the odds, against myself because I need to have challenges that I present to myself, that I bring to my mind and place on the table every day because if I don't, I get bored instantly” she says. “I need new goals and challenges and it is very important to carry those within. And when I felt the French was always difficult, I needed to work on it, no matter how many times I fell down or the number of bruises on my knees.”

Now to grass. “People underestimate the physicality of the grass and it is such a quick, explosive transition to make,” she says. “Your attitude needs to change quickly too, because you can’t change your game, and it’s adjusting your body, footwork and trying to maintain that same mentality you had.

“Every step I take within those grounds brings back so many memories, the locker room, the courts. This is where tennis belongs, such a calm, just you and the opponent and the tennis ball, there are no introductions when you go on the court.It’s a beautiful appreciation of the sport.”

THE TIMES