As a fan of most sports I have always enjoyed learning more about the game through the lives of those playing and personally involved.
My tennis knowledge is based on watchjng Wimbledon from a child and when I had children myself taking them to UK tournaments in Birmingham and Nottingham.
I was therefore blessed to watch Sharapova warm up and play a singles match. I was struck by her commitment and drive. So when offered a chance to read an early ARC of Maria's book "Unstoppable" I was delighted.
From the first page I have found myself totally immersed in her story. I enjoyed the friendly and honest disclosures and those wonderful insights into her mental as well as physical conditioning.
The sacrifice that had to be made to turn a promising 4 year old who could hit a tennis ball into a champion is indeed a remarkable account. How she has focused so much of her youth to leave her home and follow her father's dream to the USA. How she learned to trust others and be wary of the girls who would be her competitors for the majority of her growing up. 
I think what struck a chord with me early in the piece was her honesty and approach to winning and losing. Her motivation was to succeed and beat all the other girls but that came through a routine and long hours of practice.
The elephant in the room remains her recent drug ban. She meets this head on and concludes with her response to all her critics. It was interesting that she was already planning her retirement and this book before that scandal hit the headlines in early 2016. That she battled back to return to tennis and compete is remarkable until you read this book and see how Maria overcame a serious shoulder injury in her career. You as left judging the sports woman solely on her record and the joy she has brought fans of tennis.
She may remain a controversial figure in the world of Tennis but after reading this book I can not be anything other than a fan. When she finally retires the game will lose a great ambassador and I trust everyone will not rush to judge in ignorance but from the facts and that history will judge her as a true champion of her sport based on her record alone.
At a time when other players courted fame and publicity as soon as it came their way, it was a refreshing change to see a child to grow into a young woman and a mature adult. Maria will always have her distractors but anyone reading her own story will share my appreciation of a writer who has opened her heart and allowed us to share Centre Court with her.

I thoroughly enjoyed the privilege of learning more about one of the world’s best athletes over the last decade or so. No matter what anyone says, Maria Sharapova deservedly has her name etched as one of the greats in the history books, and it’s great to have an understanding of her journey (I had very little knowledge of the magnitude of her commitment/perseverance and about the numerous obstacles and hurdles that have and are still being overcome)

Thanks NetGalley and Penguin Book UK for a review copy.

Unstoppable is an ironic title for a book, which was written when Maria Sharapova had been stopped from playing tennis due to taking a banned substance.

The book focuses largely on her move from Russia to the US when she was seven, while touching on other key moments such as her victory over Serena Williams at Wimbledon when she was just 17 years old - and that iconic footage of her holding a phone in her hand and trying to call her mum from Centre Court just after her victory.

It was a wise decision to focus on the struggles Maria and her father went through when she moved to Florida as a child. This is by far the most fascinating part of the book, especially given how much reveals about her character. Maria cuts a solitary - and often unlikable - figure, driven by her desire to win, and not caring much about how she comes across in the process. The rather unpleasant comments she makes about fellow players - the remarks about Anna Kournakova's clothes, for example - show a certain nastiness to her character as well. 

Unstoppable isn't a book that will make you fall in love with Maria, although she had to overcome more than most to get where she is. However, there isn't much in the book to inspire young people to either follow in her footsteps or at least strive for what they want. 

The writing is like that of a 15 year old teenager, basic and quite shallow. The diary entries she shares are a particularly good example of that, with one ending with "get a life".. It's certainly not one of the better written autobiographies on the bookshelves.

Unstoppable doesn't reveal much that most people don't already know about Maria. There aren't any intriguing insights, big revelations, or deep and meaningful comments. The insight into the aftermath of the doping scandal is somewhat interesting, but more so for her refusal to absolute refusal to accept any responsibility for taking a banned substance.

If you're a fan of Maria Sharapova, you'll probably already know everything in the book. If you're not, there's not much to keep you reading - especially not the simple prose.

Maria writes in a very personal style, you really feel like she is having a casual conversation with you and I found the pages flying by.
Her story describes how she and her father left Russia to go to Florida after Martina Navratilova spotted her talent and urged her to pursue a career in tennis.
The relationship with her father, Yuri, fascinated me. They left everything behind including Maria's mother who followed much later. 
Yuri had to work various labouring jobs to pay the rent as Maria attended tennis academies full of the offspring of rich Americans. Her skill was perfected by repetitive practice with an emphasis on strength and endurance and gradually it began to pay off and she started winning tournaments.
She talks about her fascinating rivalry with the William sisters, a devastating shoulder injury and of course, she gives her own account of how she got banned from tennis in 2016.
She has a steely determination and desperate need to win on the court. I always considered her somewhat of an 'ice queen', hardly smiling during a match, unfriendly to opponents and prickly in media interviews. She explains in the book that she never saw the person across the net as a friend but an opponent, someone who she had to beat. If she made friends on the lonely tennis circuits there would be a time when she had to meet them in a match and she didn't want personal feelings disrupting her will to win.
A good read for tennis fans, there isn't an outpouring of gossipy anecdotes like in most celebrity autobiographies but she certainly has an interesting story to tell.
 
Pub date 12 September 2017
 
I was kindly sent the book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A very enjoyable book to read, reading how Sharapova came to rise through the tennis ranks to win the Grand Slams and be world #1.

I approached “Unstoppable” as someone with a casual interest in tennis. I’ll watch some Wimbledon, and take a passing interest in the other Grand Slam tournaments, the Olympics and the Davis Cup. And with no strong feelings either way about Maria Sharapova, I feel qualified to give a reasonably independent review of her book.

The first thing to say, unfortunately, is that “Unstoppable” is not particularly well written. It gave me the impression of being a hastily written early draft, rather than the finished article. Several times, especially in the first half of the book, I found myself puzzling over the timeline, as Maria seemed to flit back and forth in time by a year or two at odd moments. There didn’t seem to be any purpose to this, it was more like while recounting her story she would suddenly remember something that happened a couple of years previously, and she’d better talk about it now.

I also found many of her descriptions of specific matches and tournaments perfunctory and uninspiring. I came to the conclusion that the book could have done with a more critical editorial review before publication.

Her introduction, describing her 2016 meldonium drama, seemed to provide a reason for this. Maybe the book really was rushed onto the bookshelves due to that incident, as an attempt to explain her side of the story and assist her public rehabilitation. But in the final chapters a different story emerges, where her autobiography was apparently being planned for release anyway to coincide with her possible retirement. It seemed that the drug test affected the circumstance of the book’s release rather than its timing.

On the positive side, the writing style persuades me that this is really Maria’s voice. Rich Cohen is credited as her co-author, but a good majority of the words, I’m sure, are Sharapova’s. So I do believe I have seen an authentic picture of her life through her own eyes.

And I can’t criticise the writing without also mentioning one of the most beautiful lines I have ever read in a sporting context. It captured me immediately and stayed with me long after I’d finished reading the book. She is describing a point in the 2012 French Open final against Sara Errani:

“I waited and waited for the bounce. For a long moment, the ball just seemed to hang there. And the stadium was quiet – so quiet. It was the sort of quiet only a crowd can make.“

As I’ve mentioned, the match commentaries are, with a few exceptional moments, lacklustre. But where “Unstoppable” excels is in the background story. From the moment she picked up a tennis racket in Sochi at the age of four, and found that she loved to hit, through the journey to Florida with her father, who was guiding her – or more accurately propelling her with a force of sheer belief. And then when she had reached the Promised Land, her battle to find, and keep, her place at one tennis academy after another, to keep advancing her game at any cost.

The cost was high. Maria seems to have forfeited any semblance of a normal childhood for the sake of her career. The rewards have ultimately been great in her case, but throughout her early years you see many similarly talented children going through the same process. Barely a handful will have achieved any kind of success, and I can’t help wondering what their – or their parents’ – dreams have cost them.

“Unstoppable” also gives a powerful, if largely unsurprising, glimpse of Sharapova’s mental attitude to the game of tennis. Throughout the years her constant aim has not been to win tournaments or gain prize money or attain world rankings. Those have been mere side effects. As she herself put it:

“I can get fancy and sweet about it, but at the bottom my motivation is simple: I want to beat everyone.“

That kind of focus, and the dogged determination it engenders, has clearly worked incredibly well for her career. But again, there is a cost. Even among her peers, she has struggled to form friendships. She acknowledges that, and calls it a strength, believing that she would lose her edge if she liked any of her competitors. Maybe so, but there is a strand of loneliness meandering through the whole book. It’s most obvious in those early chapters when her mother is struggling for years to get a visa to visit her in America, but it remains through to the very end, and the reception she receives after the meldonium story breaks.

Sadly, Maria’s perspective also suggests that an alternative title for the book could be “Unlikeable.” When she sees other players getting on together, she’s inclined to believe they’re faking. When they open up to her emotionally, she will be thinking, if not saying, “Why are you telling me this? Can’t you see I’ve got a match to play?” I appreciate her honesty, and I understand why she reacts this way. I just can’t work out how much of her apparent hard-heartedness is intentional, and how much is simply a result of her single-minded upbringing. I hope that when her career ends she will be able to put this toughness to one side and reveal her more affectionate self.

Your response to this book will likely be determined by your existing response to Sharapova. Both fans and detractors will find ammunition in the book, and that is certainly reason to commend it.

In summary, “Unstoppable” is not a literary masterpiece, but it is an honest and interesting account of a life few people will ever truly understand, and which I, for one, would not wish to live.

A well-written biography of Maria Sharapova, full of emotion and truth about her life and career evolution. I didn't know much about her, nor the particularities of tennis as a professional sport. She has honestly wrote down a detailed account of her most important challenges, matches, hopes and fears. I learned a lot about her style and determination to win it all, about this strong mentality of a champion. It's amazing how many hours and years it takes to become the dream. 

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this arc.

I'm not a biography lover but was intrigued with the doping scandal?  However it turned into an interesting read.  Learning of her struggles through the years and her sheer determination to succeed .

Most people probably know seven things about Maria Sharapova, namely, that she’s 1) Russian by birth; 2) a tall (6’2’’), beautiful blonde; 3) a Tennis great (winning five Grand Slam titles); 4) that Serena Williams represents her arch-rival and sometime nemesis (despite having beaten her in the 2004 Wimbledon final); 5) that she’s the world’s best-paid female athlete as the result of multiple endorsements and her own businesses; 6) grunts a lot on court; and 7) that she failed a drugs test (conducted at the 2016 Australian Open).

Sharapova’s ‘Unstoppable’ (co-authored by Rich Cohen), has something to say about all these and much more. It begins with her defence against the charge of being a drugs cheat and then goes back to the start of her life and proceeds to tell her life story in a seemingly artless but compelling manner.

The book is perceptive about tennis as a sport, a gift, a passion and, not least, a business but its real fascination lies in the insights it provides into Sharapova’s character and that of her equally extraordinary father, Yuri, who first spotted her potential when she was four and who made extraordinary sacrifices to nurture that talent, temporarily leaving his wife (and his career) back in Russia to take the six-year-old Masha (as she then was) to Florida, with virtually no money and no English. As Sharapova herself puts it, her gift is not strength or speed but stamina, meaning psychological steeliness rather than physical endurance, and it is abundantly clear from ‘Unstoppable’ that she inherits that tenacity from her father. 

Whilst being very readable, the book is not without fault. Firstly, the text contradicts itself at several points. For example, Sharapova’s parents’ home is located both 100 and 40 miles from Chernobyl, and Yuri’s back problems both “started in Russia” and may have originated with the fold-out double bed that he and his daughter initially shared in Florida. Secondly, the speculation that Sharapova’s height may have been caused by her mother ingesting Chernobyl-irradiated water and vegetables shortly before she became pregnant is ill-judged given the link between that tragedy and severe birth defects.

Nevertheless, this is a very enjoyable and informative book. Sharapova is clearly defined by her determination and on court she can give the impression of being an ice queen with the temperament of a cyborg (or even Björn Borg) but ‘Unstoppable’ presents a genuinely attractive picture of Maria as an individual which should melt the heart of even her harshest critic.

Maria's wonderment pervades this very personal life story. which includes a frank and stimulating account of her and her father's penniless struggle in Russia and in America to achieve their ambition for her to be a great tennis player.
Reading Unstoppable gives the reader a privileged look at Maria's personal diaries, which bring to life an exceptional tennis player and refreshingly normal girl and young woman.   She reveals her early crush on a successful Spanish male tennis player and her preference for retail therapy rather than employing the services of a shrink.
She faces head on the torpedoing of her success by the world-wide ban imposed by her accidental use of a recently prohibited medicine, coming after the serious shoulder injury which had required surgery and had already interrupted her stella career.

I have to say that I started this book with a little trepidation. Was this going to be a vehicle for Maria Sharapova to protest her innocence and spend as much time as possible telling us how hard done by she has been following her ban for doping? Well, guess how it starts? Yep. Doping. But, a couple of pages in and that's all gone and what's left is a very good read. Her story is well written, easy to read and incredibly immersive. I was enthralled by the story of how she went from Chernobyl to Florida with her father and a couple of hundred dollars in their pocket, in and out of tennis academies before getting sponsorship deals and her obsession with the Williams sisters. Ok, Its a little self indulgent. Tall, slim, pretty Russian girl becomes champion tennis player. But then again, she is a tall, slim, pretty Russian girl who became a champion tennis player so for that at least, she can be forgiven. 
This is a really good read and you don't have to be a tennis fan to read it either.

I leapt at the chance to read this book. I have enjoyed watching tennis all my life and remember Maria Sharapova's first Grand Slam win well. I was very interested to read her memories of that as well as, obviously, her ban from the sport, which was unexpected.

The book was well written, a pleasure to read, it kept my attention all the way through. I particularly loved the vivid descriptions of the atmosphere at the Open Championships, especially Wimbledon. I like that she is observant and enjoys the light and setting, I think her mother's insistence on young Maria Sharapova knowing the Russian greats shows through in those moments. The first part of the autobiography went into great detail about her life as a young child, working extremely hard and determinedly towards the goal of being the best in the world. The writing did change pace later, particularly after her father was no longer her coach, it became less detailed and, I feel, more guarded.

What I took away from this autobiography is that Maria Sharapova is extremely driven, single minded and doesn't care what I or anybody thinks. I feel that she is a very private person. While she has shared some things with the reader in this autobiography; she has been honest about her training and the extreme hard work she has undertaken, she hasn't shared everything, which of course is understandable. I feel that she is more generous in her portrayal of the men in her life, who sound quite hard work really, than the women. This is a shame but she does explain her philosophy of seeing her tennis peers as rivals and not friends, so I suppose it is a coping mechanism in a highly competitive environment, she doesn't have to compete with men so she can afford to be kinder to them. Her rivalry with Serena Williams is mentioned many times, and I found it quite fascinating.

I think this book would appeal to everybody, it is written in a very accessible style and Maria Sharapova is an interesting person whose story deserves to be heard. Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this in exchange for my review.

I've always been a tennis fan, and had always enjoyed watching Maria Sharapova play. When she was banned from the game for taking a banned substance I was shocked. So when I was given the chance to read her story I jumped at the chance,

This is a well written account of her life so far, it is at times very compelling and moving. Her move to the USA from Russia as a young child accompanied only by her father, and then not seeing her mother for some years cannot have been easy. But this is a girl who's tough and competitive so she basically got on with it. She covers lots in this, her rivalry with Serena Williams, her family life her romances, but most of all her tennis. I was a little disappointed how she covers her ban from tennis. She sort of implies that she was set up, as the drug she was taking was already on the authorities monitoring list throughout 2015 so they knew then she was taking it, but said nothing. She also states that there are many drugs that are banned, but players don't have time to troll through lists. Players of her standing and wealth surely have a team around them who's job it is to do all those things and more, leaving the player to concentrate on their game. But her attitude that it was everybody else's fault but hers grated on me. All in all I enjoyed reading this. It's just a shame her career will be overshadowed by what happened.

I received an ARC via the publisher and NetGalley

I feel I should preface this review with the fact that I am a big tennis fan, and have a decade's worth of fandom bias and knowledge going into this book. I've never been a huge fan of Sharapova, and have always found her quite cold and detached, so I was a little surprised at how engrossed I became! 

Here's the thing - Maria Sharapova doesn't really care what you think about her, so long as she wins. That is, by itself, quite an admirable thing in a sportsperson, especially with the amount of heat put on them by fans and journalists alike. This makes a great starting point for an autobiography/memoir, because I did feel she was being honest and really putting out there what she truly thinks. Some of these things I do wonder if she might have been better off not saying, but I think I was reading so closely because I knew the people she was discussing so well, so I've probably picked up on things that seem more innocuous in passing. 

The first half of the book deals with Maria's childhood training, and I really enjoyed learning more about how the academy system in the US works. It was interesting to hear where Maria had come from, and chart her progress from being a Russian child to a pretty All-American teenager. I think an interest in tennis is needed for these sections, although if you take it as a story of a father and daughter then perhaps not.

The second half deals with her years as a pro, and this was weaker for me. I felt we weren't always getting the full story, and found some of her jibes towards her contemporaries a little unfair. I also thought the structure was a little strange in this part, as we cover the same time period during her quest to win the French twice, once to discuss her love life and the second to discuss the tennis. It took out the suspense. (Although, it IS an autobiography, so it's not as if there are spoiler alerts!)

I think the sections on her doping ban feel a bit tacked on, but I appreciate that it was likely something of a late addition to the book. I'm not sure what she writes will make people warm to, or forgive, her mistakes, but she does keep to the party line very well.

Overall an enjoyable read for someone who cares about the game, and I feel like I have a better insight into her life now, which I'm guessing was ultimately the aim!

Found this book very interesting especially from her ban from tennis and wanted to learn more about the background to her career and her growing up in russia and moving to the states to improve her tennis career at a young age, however felt the book in the middle late sections wasn't as good as the earlier sections but feel that this book would suit tennis fans.

This book will appeal to tennis fans.It is easy to read and reveals the very different side to this driven professional player. Sad and moving at times but a cracking read. A well written insight into the life of a top tennis player. Thank you Net Galley for my copy. I reviewed on Goodreads

I love a good Sports memoir so I was keen to read Maria Sharapova's autobiography. I wasn't disappointed. With a sometimes humorous and always honest look back over her 30 years of life Sharapova takes you on a journey from her conception, in a region affected by the Chernobyl disaster, through to her youngest days in Sochi and her move to America as a seven year old.
Unlike many sporting memoirs this isn't simply a list of matches played and how she approached them and felt afterwards., although there is an element of that of course, she skims through a few of her professional seasons talking in depth about only her grand slam wins. The chapter about her first Wimbledon win is especially good. The characters she meets along the way, mainly the men in her life - her father, Yuri, agent Max and her coaches from her youngest days - are evocatively described, often with genuine love and affection.
Her drugs ban is elegantly dealt with and she offers an honest appraisal of how she was caught out which made me feel like she had been a little unfairly treated. Obviously, as the writer, Sharapova wants people to feel that way but I didn't feel like she was setting out to manipulate her audience. Like the rest of her book, she is honest, often brutally so and it's hard not to find that likable.
This is a fascinating account of an exceptionally driven young woman that offers real colour and personality to someone who is often thought of as a bit lacking in that department. Maria's strong sense of fun and love of her sport shines through, even though she claims that no top tennis player plays for love of the game. My opinion of her has risen since reading this engaging and interesting book.

I really enjoyed this. I don't normally read autobiographies. But I'm glad I did. It was very interesting to see her upbringing and how intense it was at times. 
https://beaniepipbooks.wordpress.com/?p=625

My review as posted on Goodreads:

It is a while since I read a sports autobiography. From the start I liked this book. 

It opens with a frank and controversial prologue. The book then moves on to chart the time before her birth in Belarus and her early years in Siberia, then Sochi. The account then moves on to her first experience of tennis in Sochi aged four or five. 

I felt that the way this book is written very much  echoes the cool, serious and driven image which I have of Maria Sharapova, having watched her play tennis for many years.

I thought that the sections about her and her father's experiences during the early days years in the in the USA, were at times moving and very sad. They chart many of the difficulties which they had: Their life in a completely different culture to that which they were used to in Russia. It must have been very difficult for her to adjust to her family living apart. 

The book goes on to chart many of the landmark steps in her career. I found the sections about coaching, sponsorship and the sometimes difficult relationships between the players on the circuit to be very illuminating.

I'm not sure whether this book makes me think any differently about Sharapova as a tennis player. However I feel that it gives an frank insight into the world of the amateur and professional tennis world.

I give my thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK for the chance to read this book in exchange for this review.

Like many people with an interest in sport or tennis I found myself caught up in the huge news story about Maria Sharapova found guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs – namely Meldonium – in 2016. Who was to blame and why did it happen, all this and more is answered in Unstoppable. 

I have to admit I really enjoyed reading the biography about one of tennis’s most glamorous female players to have graced the court, certainly in the last decade or so. Not that glamour has any right to win tennis matches, just look at Anna Kournikova. She never reached a slam final and although talented never quite made the grade. I digress!

The narrative is easy to read and flows well, it’s a great writing team. The style is interesting too, I can’t quite put my finger on it but it flows well and delves into many of Maria’s struggles from nothing to five time grand slam champion. One of the highlights for me was learning more about her early life, the support and driven nature of her father Yuri, and leaving her mother behind in Russia for two years when she moved to Florida for coaching. It just shows how strong she was as a young girl to cope mentally without the physical support of her mother in America.

When they arrive in Florida neither father or daughter speak English yet through sheer determination they work their way into the US tennis fraternity and her tennis life begins in earnest. We discover her thoughts on Serena Williams, why she wouldn’t watch her practice and why she believes Williams has the better of the Russian.

Another interesting period was when she left Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy (now IMG owned) and had to settle for another academy that really ended on a sour note. You’ll just have to read the book on that!

As I mentioned at the top of the review many reading the book will be interested to hear what Maria thought of the failed drug test following the Australian Open in Melbourne, the two year ban and the fallout from the news. Most of us at the time were expecting Maria to announce her retirement but what came from the press conference was a complete shock. Although she does cover the topic towards the end of the book, her irregular EKG results and the fact she’d been taking the drug for over 10 years I did want to read more. The newspapers went to town, there’s nothing greater than the sport of building someone up just to knock them down at the earliest opportunity. As Maria says in her biography – the newspapers really went after her. Everything she had accomplished was shot down within hours.

A very interesting biography I was thoroughly entertained and I learned a lot about Maria not only as a top ranking tennis player but as a person and the thing I left with was an appreciation for who she is more so than her accomplishments on the court. She comes across as a determined young woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. Let’s face it, winning five grand slams doesn’t come easy. Well worth a read.