Sharapova has represented Russia in Fed Cup, although her appearances have been controversial. She has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in Sports Illustrated. Sharapova was the most searched-for athlete on Yahoo! in both 2005 and 2008. In July 2008, as a result of her success both on and off court, she was the world's highest-paid female athlete.
As of October 2008, she is coached by her father, Yuri Sharapov, and former player Michael Joyce.
Sharapova's first and second serves are powerful. She is able to serve at speeds that very few women are capable of reaching. At the Rome Masters (Internazionali BNL d'Italia) she hit at 206kph (128mph) fault serve against Dominika Cibulková,[citation needed] and, at the World TeamTennis in 2007, she struck a clean 126mph serve,[citation needed] just 4mph short of the WTA record serve.[citation needed] She is often able to produce an ace or a service winner or provoke a weak reply from her opponent, which allows her to take control of the rally immediately. A serious shoulder injury in early 2007, however, reduced the effectiveness of her serve for several months, as she routinely produced eight to ten double faults in many of her matches during this period. She later changed her service motion to a more compacted backswing (as opposed to her traditional elongated backswing) in an attempt to put less stress on her shoulder, but she nevertheless periodically experienced problems with her serve throughout the rest of the year, most notably producing 12 double faults in her third-round loss at the US Open. Her serve appeared to be more effective at the 2008 Australian Open, as she produced just 17 double faults in seven matches while winning the tournament. Her serving problems resurfaced, however, during the spring of 2008, as she produced 43 double faults in just four matches at the French Open and eight double faults during her second round loss at Wimbledon. Television commentator and two-time US Open singles champion Tracy Austin believes that when Sharapova experiences problems with her serve, she often loses confidence in the rest of her game, and as a result, produces more unforced errors and generally plays more tentatively.
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