Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova and Justine Henin, currently Nos. 2 and 1 in the WTA Tour's rankings, have entered the Acura Classic, scheduled July 28-Aug. 5 at the La Costa Resort and Spa, the tournament announced yesterday.Sharapova, who turned 20 on April 19, is the current Acura champion. She defeated Kim Clijsters in the 2006 final 7-5, 7-5. Henin has played at La Costa just once, in 2003, when she also bested Clijsters in the final 3-6, 6-2, 6-3. The players are the first whose entries have been confirmed for the tournament, which is being held for the 24th and final time. Promotion Sports, Inc. has sold the event – a $1.34 million, Tier I event on the WTA Tour – to the WTA.

Debbie Ryan

Consistency is the mark of a winner. In her 29 years at the helm of the University of Virginia women's basketball program, Debbie Ryan has averaged 21.8 wins per season. She has recorded 20 or more wins in a season 20 times and 30 or more twice en route to 21 NCAA Tournament appearances and three consecutive Final Four berths.
This season, her 30th at UVa, Ryan embarks upon a new era as the Cavaliers play their first season in the state-of-the-art John Paul Jones Arena.
In 2004-05, Ryan became a member of a very elite club. On Dec. 29, she recorded the 600th victory in her career, becoming the 11th women's coach all-time to achieve 600 wins in her coaching career. She received the WBCA Victory Club Award for her achievements. Ryan stands 632-263 after 29 seasons at Virginia. Ryan is also the fifth coach in NCAA Division I history to reach the mark with all the wins coming at the same school.
Ryan is the architect behind UVa's rise to prominence in the 1990s, and she has maintained that level of excellence. No other team in the ACC has been ranked in the AP and USA Today polls more total weeks or consecutive weeks than the Cavaliers. And only a few teams across the nation can match the level of success that the Cavaliers have experienced in NCAA competition. Her teams have been to 21 NCAA Tournaments, second only to Tennessee and Louisiana Tech. She directed UVa to three consecutive Final Four appearances in the 1990s and has consistently had the Cavaliers in contention for a national title.
In 1999, Ryan distinguished herself further by joining an elite group of coaches who have won 500 games at the Division I level. With the win over Florida State on Feb. 21, 1999, Ryan reached the 500 victory milestone. At that time, only five other coaches in Division I had attained 500 wins at one school: Pat Summit (Tennessee), Jody Conradt (Texas), Kay Yow (N.C. State), Mike Granelli (St. Peter's), and Marian Washington (Kansas).
When she won her 450th career game on Jan. 11, 1997 at N.C. State, she reached the 450-win milestone in only her 600th game, faster than any other men's or women's coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference. She was the first ACC coach to record 200 wins in league competition. In conference action, Ryan has a record of 265-116.
Other measures of Ryan's success include 12 appearances in the NCAA "Sweet 16", including 11 straight years (1987-97), three Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament titles, three straight Final Four appearances, the 1990 and 1992 East Regional titles, the 1991 Midwest Regional title, and 11 ACC regular-season crowns.
She was selected as the Naismith Coach of the Year in 1991 by the Atlanta Tipoff Club, and has won the ACC Coach of the Year award seven times. She was named the Converse District III Coach of the Year and 2000 IKON/WBCA District III Coach of the Year and earned state-wide recognition as the Virginia state Coach of the Year four times.
Ryan gives credit for many of her personal awards to the incredible players who have come through the Virginia program. Ryan has recruited and developed players such as Val Ackerman, Cathy Grimes, Donna Holt, Dawn Staley, Tonya Cardoza, Heather and Heidi Burge, Tammi Reiss, Dena Evans, Wendy Palmer and Tora Suber. Players under Ryan's guidance have won 31 All-America honors, 17 Academic All-America honors, six ACC Player of the Year awards, and 56 All-Conference awards. Virginia also has the most three-time All-ACC first team selections (Dawn Staley, Donna Holt, and Wendy Palmer).
In addition to the accomplishments on the court, 100 percent of Virginia players who have completed their four-year eligibility have graduated from the University. Alumni of Ryan's program have gone on to successful careers in medicine, law, engineering, business and coaching.
Ryan's success does not end at the college level.
In August 2003, Ryan coached the USA Basketball women's team to a silver medal at the Pan American Games in the Dominican Republic. In 2001, she served as the head coach of the USA Basketball women's team that participated in the World University Games. Ryan led the squad to the gold medal in Beijing, China. The gold medal marked the first for the USA in the World University games since 1997. Ryan led the team to a 7-1 record and an 87-69 victory over China to claim the gold medal. USA Basketball honored Ryan as its Developmental Coach of the Year for 2001.
In 1988, she was the head coach of the United States Junior National Team. After accepting this honor, Ryan had the task of putting together a tournament-winning team in 10 days. The U.S. won five games including an exciting 70-68 victory over Brazil to win the Junior World Qualifying Tournament and earn a berth in the 1989 Junior World Championships. As a result, Ryan was named head coach of the 1989 Junior World Championship Team that finished seventh.
Ryan has taken an active role in basketball outside her coaching duties at UVa. She served on the USA Basketball Women's Games Committee for the 1989-92 quadrennium. The committee was responsible for staff and player selection, as well as for establishing guidelines at competitive events.
She is not only recognized within the coaching ranks, but also in the state-wide community. On Feb. 18, 1997, Ryan was honored by the Virginia General Assembly for her success and on February 5, 1991, Ryan was named the Outstanding Woman of the Year by the Virginia Women's Forum.
Ryan is also a Nike Advisory coach and has been speaking for Nike for 19 years. She is the author of three books, Virginia Defense, Virginia Summer Development Program, and Women's Basketball Drills- Conditioning.
She played collegiate basketball at Ursinus College, where she earned her bachelor's degree in physical education in 1975. Ryan received her master's degree in physical education from UVa while working as an assistant basketball and field hockey coach. She was named head women's basketball coach in 1977.
Ryan holds her own basketball camp at Virginia each summer and is a regular speaker at camps and clinics across the country.

Terri Popielarz

Terri began her racing career in personal watercraft ("Jet-Skis") in 1990. She made history at the Hot Water Tour in Phoenix, Arizona in 1992, by becoming the first woman to ever win a national personal watercraft event in the Runabout Division.In 1997, she was offered her first opportunity to go auto racing. She competed in her first auto race, at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut, in May,1998. Competing in the Barber Formula Dodge Eastern Series, Terri raced to 38th in a championship chase that included 171 drivers. A season high finish of sixth at both New Hampshire and Lime Rock guaranteed that she would be the top finishing woman in the season-long standings. She has completed the grueling Michelin/Car and Driver One Lap of America twice. In her first run in 1999, she raced to 11th in-class driving the Team Johnson Controls/Michelin Ford Mustang Cobra SVT. In 2000, driving for the prestigious Michelin Tire team in a stock BMW M Coupe, Terri finished 14th in the One Lap's highest class running against much higher-horsepower competitors. In 1999, she made history running in the inaugural Women's Global GT Series' event at Road Atlanta. Terri ran up-front all day but would finish in eighth-place. She would return in 2000 for the complete series taking a top-ten points' finish with a season high fifth-place finish at Road Atlanta.In 2000, Terri drove to a class victory in her sophomore year of the grueling Longest Night of Moroso, a 24-hour event at Moroso Motorsports Park. In 1999, Terri organized a team of five other women to race in the event. The team competed in the Spec Racer Ford class. Terri arranged pledges for each lap the team completed. This gave her the opportunity to focus on two of her loves, auto racing and helping the Racing For Kids program.In 2003, Terri raced her way into 2 Championships at the Indianapolis Speedrome in the Hornet Division. In 2004, she brought home the Power Puff Stock Track Record, 8 Hornet Heat wins, 4 Hornet feature wins, and out of 66 races, had only 5 races out of the top 10. She ended up 2nd in the Spring/Summer Championship, 4th in the Summer/Fall Championship, 3rd in the Fall 125 Lap Championship Race out of 120 Cars.In 2005, Terri competed in the USA Modified Series finishing 12th out of 91 drivers and also won the USA Woman of the year. She was also 2nd in the Most Progressive Driver points (driver who passes the most cars).
Current Season: Terri will be again competing with the USA Modified Series. She will be racing an Ellis Asphalt Modified Chassis. The series races at Oval Tracks through out the Mid West at tracks like IRP, Mansfield, Winchester, Midvale, Flat Rock, Anderson, Kalamazoo, Angola, Ft Wayne, and Nashville.
Racing Goals: Terri looks forward to someday competing in the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and Petit Le Mans.

Personal: Terri enjoys racing her Honda 125cc Shifter Kart and is a Member of Chain Brakers Kart Club, Whiteland (IN) Raceway. Terri is married to IRL Andretti Green Chief mechanic David Popielarz and loves playing with her dog Trixie and working on their 150 year old Indianapolis farm house.
Special Thanks to: Terri would like to thank all of her friends and fans that have been so supportive during her career. She is especially appreciates the support of Cornerstone Auto Sales, Impact, Mechanix Wear, Michelin, KML, her parents and husband, Dave.

LAILA ALI

Laila Ali was born December 30, 1977 in Miami Beach, to Muhammad Ali and his third wife Veronica Porsche Ali. She was their second child and is the most famous of the nine children born to Muhammad Ali. Laila has a degree in business from Santa Monica college and previously owned a nail salon in California before becoming a boxer. She is engaged to former NFL player Curtis Conway. She also authored a book entitled "Reach!" to motivate and inspire young women.

To much fanfare, she made her debut on October 8, 1999, knocking out April Fowler in the first round. She rallied off 8 wins in a row, and many among boxing's fans started talking about wanting to see her and George Foreman's daughter, Freeda Foreman, or Joe Frazier's daughter, Jackie Frazier-Lyde square off in a boxing ring. On the evening of June 8, 2001, Ali and Frazier finally met, in a fight that became the first time a women's boxing fight was the main event of a Pay Per View event in history, a fight which was also nicknamed Ali/Frazier IV in allusion to their fathers' famous fight trilogy, and fight which was part of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame induction weekend's activities. Ali won by judge's decision.

Ali won by an eight-round majority decision, and then took off almost one year, returning 364 days later, to beat Shirvelle Williams by a six-round decision. She won the IBA title with a two-round knockout of Suzzette Taylor, on August 17 at Las Vegas, and on November 9, she retained that title and added the WIBA and IWBF belts, by unifying the crown with an eight-round knockout win over her division's other world champion, Valerie Mahfood in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On June 21, 2003, Ali retained the title in a rematch with Mahfood, knocking her out in six rounds. It was announced, on June 30, that she would fight Christy Martin on August 23. She beat Martin by a knockout in four rounds.

Laila Ali would have begun 2004 by fighting Gwendolyn O'Neil of Guyana, at Abuja, Nigeria. The fight was cancelled, however, when Ali's camp learned no airline had flights scheduled to Nigeria on the date she wanted to arrive there.

On July 17 of that year, she retained her world title, knocking out Nikki Eplion after four rounds. Ali dropped Eplion four times before the fight was stopped.

Thirteen days later, she stopped Monica Nunez in nine rounds, as part of the undercard where Mike Tyson was surprisingly knocked out by fringe contender Danny Williams,in her father's native city of Louisville, Kentucky.
On September 24, 2004, she added the IWBF Light Heavyweight title to her resume by beating O'Neal, the fighter against whom she had had to cancel a fight previously, by a knockout in three rounds, at Atlanta, Georgia.
Returning to Atlanta on February 11, 2005, Laila Ali scored a commanding and decisive eighth round technical knockout over Cassandra Geigger, in a scheduled 10-round fight.

On June 11, 2005, as the undercard in the Tyson-Kevin McBride fight, Laila Ali pounded Erin Toughill into submission in round three to remain undefeated, and became the second woman to win a World Boxing Council title (Jackie Nava was the first), in addition to defending her WIBA crown. Erin was outclassed in 1:59 of the third round. Toughill, her face bleeding profusely, took approximately 20 consecutive punches in her corner, before referee Joseph Cooper stepped in to end the fight.

On December 17, 2005, in Berlin, Germany, Laila fought and defeated Åsa Sandell by TKO in the fifth round, marking her 22nd win. The decision was heavily disputed however, and the audience booed Ali during her post-fight interview.
While a guest on Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith on June 7, 2006, Ali announced that she would be making a world tour, and said that she would be looking forward to fight Ann Wolfe on an October 2006 date. The fight with Ann Wolfe never materialized and instead on November 11, 2006 Laila fought and defeated Shelley Burton by TKO in the fourth round.
On February 3rd, 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa Laila Ali wasted little time in retaining her WBC and WIBA world titles, knocking out Gwendolyn O'Neil of Guyana at 56 seconds of the first round Saturday in their super middleweight fight.

The 29-year-old daughter of boxing great Muhammad Ali headlined the first women's professional boxing match in South Africa. She improved to 24-0 with 21 knockouts
Ali was supposed to fight Gwendolyn O’Neil in Cape Town, South Africa, on August 5, 2006, but she pulled out amidst allegations of fraud. In addition, the local promoter couldn't raise the final $325,000 installment of her $525,000 purse. The SA government is investigating the fraud allegations, according to an exposé in the Sunday Times newspaper - web links 'Reports of my death are grossly exaggerated'
Laila did fight O'Neil in February 2007, knocking her out in the first round.