The Beautiful Female Celebrities Collection: Part 8 Maria Sharapova

 

Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova features as Part 8 of the Beautiful Female Celebrities photo series featuring Female Celebrity Photos taken by myself Frank John at various locations and events. A sort of Top 20 with no particular ranking. A sports star for a change and every bit an A lister and nothing but with looks to match.

Background

Name: Maria Sharapova Occupation: Tennis player, Model, Actress, Entrepreneur

Where do you start with this one? She has a Wiki page at Wikipedia that has to be one of the longest i have seen, she is an A Lister for sure, she has 5M followers on Instagram. In her Tennis Career she won the 2004 Wimbledon Championships at age 17 and she has won 5 Grand Slam Titles and she has won 36 WTA Tour level singles titles. She is one of only ten women to achieve the career Grand Slam in singles as in the big 4 including French open, US open, Wimbledon and Australian Open. She rose to the top and then suffered monumental injuries for some period of time before coming back and claiming her place at the very pinnacle of tennis again.

Total Prize money earned $38,777,962 and is 7th in all-time in earnings. She is now in the International Tennis Hall of Fame as of 2025.

Outside of tennis she is known as being a model and has appeared in the form of endorsements for many brands including Tiffany, Land Rover, Motorola, Tag Heur the list goes on. . In March 2006, Forbes magazine listed her as the highest-paid female athlete in the world, with annual earnings of over US$18 million, the majority of which was from endorsements and sponsorships.

She has also turned her hand at acting including a Cameo role in Oceans 8. She has a confectionery business called Sugarpova and is invested in other companies so is very entrepreneurial. She has also been heavily involved with charity work,

She currently lives in Florida and California but is still a Russian citizen and is very proud to be Russian.

I could go on here all day and have had to cut it short, but you get the idea, but read her Wikipedia, she is one very dynamic driven women indeed. That' is what we are dealing with here!

PHOTO: Maria Sharapova WTA Pre Wimbledon Party, Kensington Roof Gardens, London

The Photo and Behind the Scenes

I have photographed Maria 3 times and on all 3 occasions it was at the WTA Pre Wimbledon Party held at the Rooftop Gardens in Kensington just off the Kensington High Street in Central London. Of the 3 sets, the 2014 event for me is where she is really shining as she is here.

The set up was the main pen was about 20m further down with about 25-30 photographers where these female tennis stars posed up against the dreaded A Boards as a backdrop. Not for me and not for one other guy as well, we wanted something a bit different so we shot from the crowd pen right opposite where the red carpet started (it was pink). We had crowds to the left and right and behind. I was shooting a standard set up and he was the same but had a laptop on a lectern (MacBook Pro) and was shooting stills live which were being transmitted up to Getty while he was shooting. You have to be incredibly good to be given that job as the photos have to be spot on out of camera, they then appear at the photo agency moments later and then go up for sale around the globe minutes after that. That was what i was up against.

All the big names in women's tennis turned up, a few just walked straight past but most posed up before they went to the main staging area. It's a game of roulette you are playing here but if it pans out which it did then you have some unique shots that the photogs rammed in the pens will not have. They were watching i remember.

Maria Sharapova turned up in a Ferrari right at the edge of the carpet, remember she got out and was just looking down at the floor but had a half smile on her face. Remember thinking she is not going to stop she is going to go straight through. The massive photog pen were watching as well. BUT she came over and posed up. One photo pre the big smile and the other photo she turns that light on big time. She's pretty switched on this one maybe the lectern and laptop pulled her over, I don't think we said a word but the crowds were going mental , will never know BUT she is there, she's smiling, we have direct eye contact and she looks a million. Another full on shot...incredibly hard to get certainly with A Listers but when you get it...........it's like hitting the jackpot. It's like "here's the shot boy......grab it while you can"

She is currently aged 38 and in these photos I would say he is about 27 (photo taken June 2014)

PHOTO: Maria Sharapova WTA Pre Wimbledon Party, Kensington Roof Gardens, London (2 shots before)

The Look

She is renowned for a being a looker and regularly comes up in the beautiful female celebrity lists. She is 6ft 2 tall and on the night she was wearing 4" maybe 5" heels. So she was standing there at 6ft 6 or so. I was completely gob smacked out how tall these women are. Loves to show off her long legs and she had the walk to match....what I call "the models walk" when she headed in our direction. She is a big smiler and she lit up that place when she did so. Sophisticated but simple I think the look is here. Fashionable but classic. No big flashy jewellery, no loud and extreme outfits and just a bit of make up in the right places to finish the "Maria Look" . I have photographed a few Russian women and when they are attractive they are incredibly so.

Personality

Based on what I saw 3 times, she is good looking, she knows she is good looking and she uses that beauty to it's full extent and expects to be treated accordingly. She is not the "it is what it is" type, she harnesses that power (and beauty is a power). She does not hide her light under a bushel, she brings it out for all to see and it has served her well. Reading her Wiki I would say she is an incredibly determined type, very focused and in the face of extreme adversity she will fight to the death often for years to reclaim her rightful place where she is meant to be and she will be unwavering in that cause. Witness her rise to fame in Tennis and fall and then comeback after many years of bad luck and health issues. I think she may even like it that way, it's a challenge and this one likes a challenge. It makes the victory even more sweet.

In photographic terms photographing her, despite her huge following and A list status and massive bank account, she was very obliging in having her picture taken and for that, especially these shots here, myself and the Getty guy included......... will always be eternally grateful.

More info: Check her Instagram @mariasharapova and her website at: couldn't find one, check out her wiki at Wikipedia and check out Maria at wtatennis.com

This article originally appeared on Frank John London