“I'm not the next anyone. I'm the first Maria Sharapova.”
— Maria Sharapova
From interviews around 2004-2005, when journalists constantly compared her to Anna Kournikova. She refused to be defined by anyone else's story.
When I arrived in Florida at seven, they called me 'the little Russian girl.' When I won Wimbledon, 'the next Kournikova.' I didn't cross an ocean and learn a language and rebuild my serve after shoulder surgery to be the next anyone. Whatever box they are trying to put you in, it is too small. You are not a sequel. You are a first edition.