After a career-long struggle with success on clay courts, Sharapova claimed the 2012 French Open to complete the career Grand Slam, briefly returning to the No.

[6][7][8] On 4 October 2016, the suspension was reduced to 15 months, starting from the date of the failed test, as the Court of Arbitration for Sport found that she had committed "no significant fault" and that she had taken the substance "based on a doctor's recommendation... with good faith belief that it was appropriate and compliant with the relevant rules".

[19] In 1993, at the age of six, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navratilova, who recommended professional training with Nick Bollettieri at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

[21] Sharapova made her professional debut in 2001 on her 14th birthday on 19 April, and played her first WTA tournament at the Pacific Life Open in 2002, winning a match before losing to Monica Seles.

By the end of September, Sharapova had already captured her first WTA title at a smaller event, the Japan Open Tennis Championships, before winning her second in her final tournament of the season, the Bell Challenge in Quebec City.

[29] During the spring clay-court season, Sharapova entered the top 20 on the WTA world rankings as a result of reaching the third round of the Qatar Telecom German Open and the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, both of which were Tier I events.

Sharapova also became the second Russian woman (after Anastasia Myskina had won the year's previous major at Roland Garros) to win a Grand Slam singles title.

[43] As the defending champion at Wimbledon, Sharapova reached the semifinals without dropping a set and losing a service game just once, extending her winning streak on grass to 24 matches.

[45] She held it for seven weeks, surrendering it back to Henin after failing to defend her title at the Pacific Life Open, instead losing in the fourth round to Vera Zvonareva after struggling with a hamstring injury.

[62] A shoulder injury forced Sharapova to miss most of the clay-court season for the second consecutive year, resulting in her only tune-up for the French Open being the İstanbul Cup,[63] where she lost in the semifinals to Aravane Rezaï.

In April, Sharapova won the Bausch & Lomb Championships, having survived her longest-ever match, at 3 hours and 26 minutes long, in the third round against Anabel Medina Garrigues.

[82] An MRI scan revealed that she had been suffering from a rotator cuff tear since April, forcing her out of all tournaments for the rest of the season, including the Beijing Olympics, the US Open, and the WTA Tour Championships.

[89] Sharapova enjoyed considerable success in the summer months, reaching the quarterfinals at the Bank of the West Classic, the semifinals at the LA Women's Championships, and finishing runner-up at the Rogers Cup to Elena Dementieva.

During the WTA Tour Championships, Sharapova withdrew during the round-robin stage after defeats against Samantha Stosur and Li Na, as a result of the ankle injury she had suffered in Tokyo.

Sharapova did not compete in any of the summer hard-court warm-up events after the Olympics,[138] pulling out of both Montreal and Cincinnati (where she was the defending champion) due to a stomach virus.

She defeated Olga Puchkova and Misaki Doi in the first two rounds without losing a game in either match, the first time a player won in back-to-back double bagels at a Grand Slam tournament since the 1985 Australian Open.

In February, following her participation in the Fed Cup, Sharapova played in Acapulco, where she beat Shelby Rogers, Mariana Duque Mariño and Magdaléna Rybáriková to advance the semifinals.

After the Australian Open, Sharapova was nominated by team captain Anastasia Myskina to play the Fed Cup, but she had a forearm injury and was only listed for the doubles match.

[193] Sharapova admitted to testing positive for meldonium, an anti-ischemic drug usually prescribed for heart conditions that was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)'s banned substances list on 1 January 2016.

For the past ten years I have been given a medicine called mildronate by my family doctor and a few days ago after I received the ITF letter I found out that it also has another name of meldonium which I did not know.

[196] Don Catlin, a long-time anti-doping expert and the scientific director of the Banned Substances Control Group (BSCG) stated that "There's really no evidence that there's any performance enhancement from meldonium – Zero percent.

"[198][199] Sharapova said that she had been taking the drug to treat magnesium deficiency, an irregular EKG and family history of diabetes,[200] and indicated that she had not read an email informing her that meldonium had been banned for use in tennis.

Meldonium's addition was outlined on a WADA and United States Anti-Doping Agency summary document[201][202] and it has been reported that all tennis players were warned five times that it was due to be banned.

[225] On 12 April, WADA intimated that athletes who tested positive for meldonium before 1 March could avoid bans, but the International Tennis Federation said that Sharapova's case would proceed.

Larisa Neiland, assistant to Russia Fed Cup captain Shamil Tarpishchev, added: "Her father's behaviour (at the WTA Tour Championships) was simply outrageous.

She was one of the few players on the WTA Tour who often used the reverse forehand—also known as the 'buggy whip' forehand—a technique that allowed her to hit winners from defensive positions which excelled on fast grass, hard, and carpet courts.

[287] At the 2004 US Open, Sharapova, along with several other Russian female tennis players, wore a black ribbon in observance of the tragedy after the Beslan school hostage crisis, which took place only days before.

[307] Additionally, she appeared in commercials for Land Rover and Canon, as well as approved of namesake items by watch brand Tag Heuer and jeweller Tiffany.

[313] She comes up with design ideas and sketches in a process that begins 18 months before the event[313] and receives royalties from the sale of the collection, of which the corresponding dresses are coordinated to be available simultaneously with the corresponding major tournament.

[333][334] Finals: 3 (1 title, 2 runner-ups) General Specific Chris Evert (1975/1985 – 260 w) Evonne Goolagong (1976 – 2 w) Martina Navratilova (1978/1987 – 331 w) Tracy Austin (1980 – 22 w) Steffi Graf (1987/1997 – 377 w) // Monica Seles (1991/1996 – 178 w) Arantxa Sánchez Vicario (1995 – 12 w) Martina Hingis (1997/2001 – 209 w) Lindsay Davenport (1998/2006 – 98 w) Jennifer Capriati (2001/2002 – 17 w) Venus Williams (2002 – 11 w) Serena Williams (2002/2017 – 319 w) Kim Clijsters (2003/2011 – 20 w) Justine Henin (2003/2008 – 117 w) Amélie Mauresmo (2004/2006 – 39 w) Maria Sharapova (2005/2012 – 21 w) Ana Ivanovic (2008 – 12 w) Jelena Janković (2008/2009 – 18 w) Dinara Safina (2009 – 26 w) Caroline Wozniacki (2010/2018 – 71 w) Victoria Azarenka (2012/2013 – 51 w) Angelique Kerber (2016/2017 – 34 w) Karolína Plíšková (2017 – 8 w) Garbiñe Muguruza (2017 – 4 w) Simona Halep (2017/2019 – 64 w) Naomi Osaka (2019 – 25 w) Ashleigh Barty (2019/2022 – 121 w) Iga Świątek (2022/2024 – 125 w) Aryna Sabalenka (2023/2024 – 9 w)