Maria Sharapova
Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova holds the Olympic flame during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games February 7, 2014. REUTERS/Brian Snyder REUTERS

Before Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal, and Venus and Serena Williams made it big, they were a bunch of amateur players too. Success didn't come easy for them and they had to work their way up to be noticed and become successful.

Trans World Sport apparently had a knack in somewhat predicting the athletes that would soon make it big in the sporting world someday. They were able to get snaps of some of the in sport athletes before they became famous such as Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova, and Venus and Serena Williams. Here's a link to the video.

Rafael Nadal

Nadal was discovered having a talent for tennis at a very young age of three years old. His uncle, Toni Nadal, who used to play professional tennis, was the one who started training him, according to Biography.com. As young as eight years old, Nadal had already achieved championship title in an under-12 tennis tournament. He had basically been playing tennis all his life. In 2005, Nadal won his first French Open title when he was only 19 years old. It was also the first time that he had participated in such tournament. Currently, Nadal is the top-ranked male athlete in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) world rankings.

Maria Sharapova

Much like Nadal, Sharapova has practically lived her life playing tennis as well. She started playing tennis when she was nine years old. Her father even enrolled her at a tennis academy in Florida to further hone her tennis abilities. She bagged her first-ever World Tennis Association (WTA) victory at the 2003 AIG Japan Open. Back then, she was only 14 years old. She ranks fifth in the world at present time.

Venus Williams

Venus Williams is a former World No. 1. She currently sits at the 29th spot in the world rankings as of March 1, 2014. Her father was the one who introduced her to tennis. She became a professional tennis athlete at the age of 14. She has won seven Grand Slam titles and five Wimbledon championships.

Serena Williams

Serena, Venus's younger sister, is the top-ranked athlete in the world. She was only three years old when she started playing tennis with Venus. Serena turned professional in 1995, and ever since then, she had won innumerable achievements in tennis, in addition to four Olympic gold medals. She has won 32 major titles up-to-date. Currently, Serena is the defending champion of the U.S. Open, French Open, WTA Tour Championships, and Olympic ladies singles tournament.

The four athletes mentioned above all share the same passion - and that is the passion for the sport of tennis. They started off at a very young age with determination and drive to succeed, which could well be the reasons why they became successful in their field of sport.

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