World`s best-paid female sports stars

Wimbledon 2004 thrust Maria Sharapova well into the limelight. From there to becoming the best-paid female sports star was but a small step for this leggy blonde from Russia. Unlike Anna Kournikova, who ruled the endorsment stakes earlier, here was not just a beauty, but a beauty with talent, and sackfuls of it. The moolah that came her way in 2004: a cool 18.2 million dollars according to the Forbes magazine