Sharapova gives cash for Chernobyl recovery

Maria Sharapova, the world's top-ranked female tennis player, became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund and donated $US100,000 ($NZ146,000) to help victims of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear disaster.At a crowded press conference, Sharapova, 19, said she gave the money to eight UN development projects in rural communities in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine for youths still suffering from the April 1986 Chernobyl power plant explosion.The world's worst nuclear accident spewed clouds of radioactive dust into parts of Europe, Russia and especially Belarus, making large areas uninhabitable."My first step is to focus on the Chernobyl-affected region, where my family has roots," Sharapova said. "Today, it is poverty and lack of opportunities that pose the greatest threat for young people in the Chernobyl region."Sharapova's family left Gomel in Belarus after the Chernobyl accident. She was born in Siberia a year later but left Russia for the United States at age 9 to study tennis. She won Wimbledon in 2004 and the US Open in 2006.Sharapova earned nearly $US19 million last year in advertising endorsements and prizemoney, according to Forbes magazine.