The fiercely honest, fearless, darkly funny autobiography of global tennis star Maria Sharapova In 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 and they don't speak English. They have arrived from Russia with just seven hundred dollars and the conviction that this six-year-old girl will be the world's next great tennis star. They are right. This is Maria Sharapova's gripping and fearless autobiography, telling her story from her roots in the small Siberian town her parents fled to after the Chernobyl disaster, through her arrival in the US with nothing and her phenomenal rise to success - winning Wimbledon aged just seventeen - to the disasters that threatened her career and her fight back. 'A compelling memoir' David Shaftel, Financial Times 'An illuminating account ... This is the bildungsroman of a controversial champion, a portrait of the athlete as an uncommonly driven young woman' Julia Felsenthal, Vogue

Know what to say, what not to say, what to do on a court should you make the mistake of being seen on one, and what excuses to make if you can't lay a racquet head on a ball.

Never again confuse topspin with a slice, or a squash shot with a tweener. Bask in the admiration of your fellow tennis players as you pronounce confidently on the merits of the windshield wiper, the reverse forehand and the run-around. Above all, know exactly how to hold your own against the sort of tennis nerd who probably emerged from the womb reading a copy of Inner Tennis. And never wear a headband.

DO SAY "I was trying out an extreme version of the extreme Hawaiian and something just went 'ping' in my wrist. Never been the same since."

DON'T SAY "You CANNOT be serious...you guys are the absolute pits of the world!"