The buzz started with two words that spread through the crowd faster than a teenager’s tweet: “She’s here.”
Dozens of squealing fans surged forward and a swarm of photographers started flashing away. The only things missing from the suddenly glamorous sidewalk scene were a purple velvet rope and a muscular doorman with a bad attitude.
“Please keep this area clear,” said one of several Manhattan Beach police officers providing security. “Please step back a little bit.”
Suddenly there was Maria Sharapova – looking even better in the flesh than on TV – at the corner of Manhattan Ave and 10th St. She clapped her hands and blew kisses at the line of more than 200 wildly cheering fans that ran all the way from the top of Manhattan Ave. down to Ocean Ave. Towering over everyone in a thigh-high flowered mini-dress and six-inch orange heels, the six-foot-two Sharapova waved and reassured her adoring fans: “We’ll get to every single one of you.”
But after more than an hour and a half some fans couldn’t wait any longer to share their feelings.
“We love you Maria,” shouted one woman in blue jeans and a black tank top as she frantically took pictures with her cellphone. “You’re the greatest.”
A young man sporting a full-on tennis outfit of white sneakers, black shorts and a too-tight blue-and-gold Nike muscle-shirt let out a loud whistle and added: “You’re looking extremely hot. How about a date tonight?” Sharapova just smiled and kept on walking towards the little strip of red carpet set up for photographs.
The well-organized and smoothly run event last month was part of Sharapova’s continuing worldwide rollout of her own personal line of premium candies called Sugarpova. There are ten varieties, reflecting the many differing sides of her personality: chic, flirty, silly, splashy, cheeky, sassy, spooky, smitten, quirky and sporty.
It was staged at Tabula Rasa Essentials in downtown Manhattan Beach, a high-end gift boutique owned and run by Maureen McBride, a former fashion industry executive who proposed the event after she befriended Sharapova on one her frequent visits to the store.
The ground rules were simple: anyone with a bag of Sugarpova candy – available at $6 a pop – was entitled to an autograph and picture with the 26-year-old tennis star who divides her time between her home in Manhattan Beach, her home in Bradenton, Florida and her traveling home on the global tennis tour which she has been playing on for more than a decade now.
But before getting to the long line of patient fans she posed for pictures with the VIP’s who didn’t have to wait on line. First up were the kids from the Manhattan Beach Country Club, nine little girls – most dressed in tennis clothes to resemble Sharapova – and two boys. Then came several kids associated with the South Bay charity called Walk with Sally, which helps children with cancer-stricken parents.
Next up were members of the Mira Costa High School boys and girls tennis teams. One of the boys asked her for a date – the testosterone was flowing freely all around her — but she simply smiled and took it in good humor. They were followed by former Mayor Portia Cohen and her friend Sheryl Thayler.
“What a thrill that was,” said Cohen moments after the pictures were snapped. “She’s such a great ambassador for Manhattan Beach. You can see how excited everyone is just to be around her.”
[scrollGallery id = 610]Waiting is the Hardest Part
The excitement started building long before Sharapova actually arrived on the scene. She was scheduled to arrive at 4 p.m., so Veronika Galstyan of Glendale showed up at 3 p.m. She immediately bought several bags of Sugarpova – Quirky and Sporty – and established her place at the head of the line. Claiming to be the biggest Sharapova fan in the world – “She’s from Russia and so am I!” — the 16-year-old said she heard about the event on Sharapova’s Twitter feed.
“I got her to autograph a tennis ball at Indian Wells last year,” she breathlessly said. “Now I really want to get a picture with her.”
Second in line were sisters Jenny and Tricia Arafit, Torrance teen-agers who also were clutching bags of Sugarpova candy.
“We heard about this on Facebook and we weren’t going to miss it for anything,” Jenny said. “We were almost first in line but we didn’t get out of the store fast enough.”
Mira Costa tennis coach Joe Ciasulli showed up with several members of the boys and girls teams at 4 p.m. While there was no sign of Sharapova yet, there was plenty of discussion about her looks and her game. Asked what they liked best about her, the boys didn’t hesitate.
“She’s hot,” said Tom Wissel, a doubles player.
“Her legs,” said his doubles partner, Connor Matthews.
The boys were gobbling Sugarpova candy straight out of the bag, and the sugar rush appeared to have gone straight to their heads.
“It’s an explosion of flavor – just like my serve,” Wissel said of the Splashy candy he was eating.
Matthews was eating Quirky sour. “It’s got a good punch to it – like my volley,” he said.
The Mira Costa assistant tennis coach, Mark McGuire, is also the head pro at the Manhattan Beach Country Club, where Sharapova frequently practices. He said the club accommodated the world’s number two ranked player by installing a special surface on one of its courts designed to mirror the speed of the hard court surface used on the pro tennis tour.
“When she’s in town, she usually practices at the club twice a day,” McGuire said. “We see quite a bit of her. The kids love her.”
By 4:30 p.m. there was still no sign of Sharapova and the excitement and anticipation continued to build.
She finally showed up at 4:40 and was greeted with the kind of adoring adulation that is usually reserved for big-time Hollywood stars with a worldwide brand.
Galstyan, the Glendale teenager who had staked out her place at the head of the line, said the long wait didn’t bother her in the least.
“It was worth it, no doubt,” she said. “Just to be able to say hi to her and get my picture taken with her, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Maria Full of Grace
After ten minutes of posing for group pictures with the VIP’s, Sharapova headed inside the store and sat behind a table, ready to autograph the candy bags and pose for individual pictures. One by one the fans that had waited so patiently came up for their 15 seconds of proximity to superstardom.
The supplicants ranged in age from 5-year-old Samantha Gardner of Santa Monica – “I like the way she hits her serve so hard,” she said – to 78-year-old Tom Tanaka, who said he drove up from Orange County just for the chance to have his picture taken with Sharapova.
“I got here late and when I saw how long the line was I thought maybe I wouldn’t get the chance to pose with her,” he said. “But I was wrong. I didn’t have very long with her, but we said hi and I got my picture with her. ”
For more than an hour Sharapova graciously greeted everyone that came to her table and exchanged a few words, even if it was only hello and how are you? Most fans had something they wanted to tell her and she was able to establish a personal connection in the few seconds allotted.
“She’s amazing the way she handles her celebrity so well,” said McBride, watching from the sidelines. “She has such magnificent energy, and she’s signing every bag of candy put in front of her. We’re all just so excited that she agreed to do this event.”
Building the Brand
Finally, after everyone who wanted a picture and autograph got one, Sharapova sat down for a one-on-one interview with Beach.
She quickly shot down a couple of rumors that have been floating around town: No, she is not planning to leave her house in the sand section of Manhattan Beach, nor is she building a new house in the hill section or in Hermosa Beach.
As one of the world’s richest, most beautiful and eligible bachelorettes, there is always speculation about her love life. She confirmed that she and former Lakers player Sasha Vujacic had called off their engagement – first announced back in 2009 – but she refused to confirm reports that she is now dating Bulgarian tennis star Grigor Dimitrov, one of the fastest rising players on the men’s circuit. He is known as Baby Federer, because his smooth style and one-handed backhand resemble that of Roger Federer, winner of more Grand Slams than anyone in history and still one of the top ranked players in the world.
“I’m sorry, but I never discuss my personal life publicly,” she said. “And certainly not at an event like this.”
She defended her decision to promote candy and sugar over something more compatible – say, baked tofu or wheatgrass smoothies — with the healthy lifestyle she pursues as part of her successful approach to pro tennis.
“I’ve always had a sweet tooth, so it was a natural outgrowth of that,” she said. “And I’m a foodie, so I wanted it to be something that I enjoy and that other people can enjoy.”
She also explained how the Manhattan Beach event came about. Sharapova originally launched Sugarpova in August at New York fashion retailer Henri Bendel. McBride, who was in New York, attended that launch. A few months later, Sharapova was shopping at Tabula Rasa when the two women started talking about selling Sugarpova in Manhattan Beach.
“Maureen said she wanted to carry Sugarpova at her store, so we worked out the schedule for a launch event and here we are today,” she said. “I’ve watched this town grow and I really feel a part of it now.”
Sharapova said she started working on the Sugarpova concept about two years ago. She knew almost immediately that she wanted to focus on gummy candies because she had always liked them even as a young girl.
“I moved to the U.S. when I was 7 years old from Russia,” she said. “When I was a little bit older I went to the movie theater and I saw the stand of candy where we could pick our own candy. We didn’t have that in Russia. So that was how my fascination with gummies started.”
Sharapova makes an estimated $25 million annually in endorsements. She has promoted many brands throughout her career, including Nike, Canon cameras and Cole Haan. But she wanted to be more than just the face of a product.
“These were huge brands and they were the ones making the decisions. I wanted to be in a position where I could make my own business decisions,” Sharapova said. “I wanted to create a quality product and a quality business.”
She admitted she couldn’t take credit for the catchy name that plays off her celebrity.
“That came up in an early marketing meeting,” she said. “I’m not sure who said it, but I knew right away that was a good name.”
The idea to name each flavor after one of her personality traits was her own. And the different shapes were also her own: Flirty is shaped like a woman’s lips, Chic comes in the shape of pumps and purses, and Sporty is shaped like small tennis balls.
“My favorite is Quirky, which is how I describe myself,” she said.
Long range, she said, she hopes to expand her product line to things like fashion items, hair accessories and cosmetics.
After the interview ended, McBride said the event had been even better than she had hoped for.
“We sold over 700 bags of candy, and some of that money will be split between Maria’s Foundation and Walk with Sally, which helps kids,” she said. “It was a real success-a-pova.”
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