Unstoppable

The rise, and fall, and rise again of tennis sensation Maria SharapovaIn the middle of the night, a father and his daughter step off a Greyhound bus in Florida and head straight to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. They ring the bell, though no one is expecting them. They don't speak English. They've arrived from Russia with only $700 and the conviction that this six-year-old will be the next tennis star. Surprisingly, they are right.Young Maria Sharapova went on to become one of the best, most famous, and highest-paid athletes. At seventeen, she won Wimbledon. At eighteen, she was ranked number one. To date, she has won five Grand Slams. Her stardom spills off the court to fashion, philanthropy, food. But at the peak of her popularity, Sharapova faced a new challenge, after testing positive for a banned drug. The backlash was shocking--sponsors fled, fans berated her, and she received a two-year suspension. Despite successfully appealing her sentence, she still faced the battle of maintaining her eminence on the court and her place in fans' hearts. In this gripping autobiography, Sharapova traces her precarious beginnings in Siberia to her controversial doping ban. The same way she plays tennis, she tells her story with a no-holds-barred attitude, fierce and provocative. Sharapova's story transcends the sports genre--this is an inspiring tale of gritty persistence, pulsing with fearlessness and candor, utterly unforgettable.