The tennis super-agent, Max Eisenbud has worked with Maria Sharapova for over 23 years. He witnessed the Russian player’s stellar rise to winning five Grand Slam titles and becoming the world’s number-one tennis player during her 19-year-long career. But do you know how golf sensation, Tiger Woods played a major role during Maria Sharapova’s rapid rise in 2004?

Both Tiger Woods and Maria Sharapova were at the peak of their careers in the mid-2000s. At that time, Sharapova was the perfect match for several brands. She landed her first big endorsement deal with Canon at the age of just 17. It was just after she clinched her maiden Grand Slam title at the 2004 Wimbledon. Eisenbud recently came to the ‘Served with Andy Roddick’ podcast and revealed how he spent time with Wood’s agent to understand how to deal with Sharapova’s building stardom.

‘The key is how do you maximize your earnings but still win’- Maria Sharapova’s superagent reveals the strategies behind their success

Max Eisenbud, currently the vice president of IMG, once shared how he was blown by the Russian player’s ‘intensity’ when he first met her at the IMG Academy in Florida. He was impressed looking at Sharapova’s energy and determination for the game. Recalling those initial days with Maria Sharapova, he revealed how they drew inspiration from Tiger Woods. Eisenbud said that at that time, Sharapova’s father was like, “I don’t want to hear any more BS now. You show me the money, basically.”
To deal with that, he had to take help from Mark Steinberg, who was Tiger Woods’ agent back then. “Mark Steinberg was a colleague of mine who worked on the 13th floor [at IMG], so I spent a lot of time with him to figure out how Tiger was managing his deals. What he’d like to do is take three weeks of the year to do his shoots, he would do five shoots a week in those weeks,” said Eisenbud.

He further added, “The key is how do you maximize your earnings but still win.” Tiger Woods was pretty much consistent in doing that at the time. In that way, Eisenbud figured out how to manage the weeks for Maria Sharapova.

Eisenbud once revealed how he had helped the Sharapova family through a tough period early on in her career. He is now happy to have served as the agent of the former world number one. What did Max Eisenbud say about the role of Yuri Sharapov in his daughter’s career?

‘Gold Standard of developing a young player’- Sharapova’s agent speaks about her father

During an interview with The Functional Tennis Podcast in 2022, Eisenbud heaped praise on Yuri Sharapov’s role in developing his daughter into a tennis star. He said, “Maria’s dad was the most amazing. And I would call him the gold standard of developing a young player.” He revealed how her father demanded short but intense practices and never pushed his daughter beyond the limit.

Eisenbud went on to add that Sharapova’s father was more focused on his daughter playing a good brand of tennis rather than just winning the matches. He also prioritized his daughter’s health over everything else. Overall, Eisenbud believes that Yuri Sharapov played a crucial role in Maria Sharapova’s successful career.