After Vietnam Tuoitre (Youth) Newspaper create the Sharapova joke, an English version of Vietnamnet translate it to English:

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/sports/2008/02/769551/ (deleted)

Sharapova’s plans to open tennis center in Vietnam
16:53′ 20/02/2008 (GMT+7)
http://www.tinthethao.com.vn/data/Image/2006/11/04/Sharapova.jpg2.jpg

VietNamNet Bridge – In early 2007, Sharapova, the famed Russian tennis beauty quietly visited Vietnam. She asked her driver to avoid major streets, lest she be noticed.
On the way to Lai Thieu in southern Vietnam, known for its orchards, the driver wound Sharapova around on a back country road. She was surprised at seeing many people playing tennis but couldn’t understand why they were playing without a ball. She asked the interpreter, whose face turned red and said “they love tennis but they are poor and can’t buy balls”.
One month later, the Vietnam Tennis Federation received a thick file labeled “Plans to establish the Sharapova Bangky tennis training center.”
The federation’s officials were surprised and met with the interpreter. He laughed and said: “The day we drove across Bang Ky bride. She saw many people holding mosquito-catching racquets. I explained to her that they were playing tennis; it was then she thought of establishing a tennis training center named after her and the Bang Ky bridge.”
Early this year, Sharapova sent her assistant to Vietnam to learn why Vietnamese agencies hadn’t responded to her.

And then UPI quickly catched it here (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Sports/2008/02/21/sharapova_plans_tennis_center_in_vietnam/5215)

LAI THIEU , Vietnam, Feb. 21 (UPI) — Maria Sharapova, fifth in the latest world women’s tennis rankings, announced plans to open a tennis center in southern Vietnam.

In a release, Sharapova said she got the idea after an undisclosed trip to Lai Thieu early last year where she said she saw many people playing tennis but couldn’t understand why they were playing without a ball while using mosquito-catching rackets.

“They love tennis but they are poor and can’t buy balls,” Sharapova was told by an interpeter.

Later, she sent a letter to the Vietnam Tennis Federation saying that she would build the Sharapova Bangky tennis training center.

Earlier this week, she also became Sony Ericsson Mobile Communication’s first global ambassador after signing a six-year. $88 million agreement with the company’s design team to produce a range of products and accessories for the women’s tennis tour, which is sponsored by Sony Ericcson.

Back to the story. A Vietnamese poster in another forum has cleared it up:

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To all, Maria has never been to VN. This was a joke created by TuoiTre newspaper to criticize the bad living condition in the country (the kids use electric paddle to kill mosquitoes and they look like playing tennis with no balls. Sharapova saw that and suggested the idea of a tennis academy). Somehow another VN newspaper believe in the story and quote it as a serious one. But I don’t know how UPI catch the news and spread it all over the world.

Here is the link if you can read Vietnamese.

http://www3.tuoitre.com.vn/thethao/Index.aspx?ArticleID=244452&ChannelID=14

I’ve edited both of your comments. Pov, thank you for bringing the matter to my attention; my apologies for not editing it sooner. However, I don’t believe Vicki was intending to sound bigoted by referring to Maria’s hair color. But it is never appropriate to stereotype an individual based on their physical features.

As for Maria, this makes her even more adorable.

I will give credit where it is due at least Maria can see a bigger picture outside of tennis and was willing to try and help.

I did stress that this “reportedly” happened, but given the many partially true stories floating around the net already this season, who knows?

Radek Stepanek and Nicole Vaidisova’s marriage license application was another bad joke, but it did pan out to have a bit of credence.