Do we like Maria Sharapova?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful turned up in her words or acts and there's real good work, but a doping suspension, an unresolved Indian probe and a cautious Ukraine post keep her short of the top.
Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon at 17 and became the first Russian woman to reach world number one. She picked up five Grand Slam titles and a career slam along the way. In August 2025 she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, with Serena Williams turning up as a surprise to introduce her.
The big stain is 2016, when she tested positive for meldonium and the UN development agency suspended her as a goodwill ambassador while the case ran. It's the kind of mess that comes from not checking the banned list, rather than a pattern of nastiness, and it's the thing most people remember about her. It's a stain on her sporting record, not a mark against how she treats people.
The other blot is a 2017 Associated Press report that Indian police were investigating a real estate firm over a luxury project that used her name, with home buyers alleging they'd been cheated. The report said she was used to endorse it, and it carried no response from her. We found no later outcome, so treat it as unresolved and not as a finding against her.
On the harm check we came up empty. No searches turned up anything from her on trans people, women, migrants or the climate, no conspiracy rabbit holes and no work with grievance merchants. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 she announced a donation to children's relief, and critics noticed that she never used the word war. That's a legitimate gripe, but a fairly narrow one.
The good stuff is real. In 2007 she became a UN Development Programme goodwill ambassador focused on Chernobyl recovery, for a symbolic one dollar salary, and called it one of her proudest contracts. Her foundation also backed scholarships for young people from affected areas, according to the UN agency's reporting at the time.
Lately she's been a quiet presence. She popped up as a spectator at Indian Wells in March 2026, and in July 2025 she called out the Wall Street Journal for a headline about Aryna Sabalenka, which is a decent look for a former champ backing a current one.