Is Maria Sharapova married? Tennis star welcomes baby boy with Alexander Gilkes
Maria Sharapova announced the birth of her first child, Theodore, on Friday, July 15, by tweeting a photo of the infant with her fiancé Alexander Gilkes. As they clutched their infant, the former tennis champion and the British businessman appeared to be doting parents.
The five-time Grand Slam winner from Russia, who retired from tennis in 2020, wrote on Instagram, "The most beautiful, hard, and fulfilling present our tiny family could wish for." She earlier announced her pregnancy on her 35th birthday, April 19, by posting a stunning Instagram photo of herself barefoot on the beach. "Precious beginnings!!! Eating birthday cake for two has always been my specialty," Maria captioned the photo of herself cuddling her baby belly. Sharapova and Gilkes have yet to reveal any other information about their son's birth.
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The latest addition to Sharapova's family arrives two years after she announced her retirement from professional tennis following the 2020 Australian Open. She made the historic decision in a Vanity Fair guest post.
Who is Alexander Gilkes?
Following graduation, Gilkes began his work as an auctioneer for Louis Vuitton in France. He also auctioned items for Madonna's Raising Malawi and the Elton John Aids Foundation. He co-founded the New York-based online art auction business Paddle8 in 2010, which grew to become the world's fifth-largest auction house with US$150 million in sales by 2015. Furthermore, he was the company's president until it was sold to The Native in 2016. In 2020, he co-founded the Los Angeles-based venture studio Squared Circles.
Gilkes was born in London and educated at Eton College and the University of Bristol, although he now lives in New York City and is a trustee of the New York Academy of Art. Fast Company magazine called the boisterous businessman one of the Most Creative Entrepreneurs in 2017. Details magazine dubbed him a "Digital Maverick," while Apollo magazine named him one of the "40 Most Important People Under 40."
He has also been on GQ and Vanity Fair's best-dressed lists, and he is a contributing editor to British Vogue. Gilkes' net worth is presently valued at $25 million. Gilkes has close links to British nobility. He went to Eton alongside Prince William and Prince Harry, and he attended both the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's 2011 wedding and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's 2018 wedding. From 2013 until 2015, Princess Eugenie of York worked as an auction manager at Paddle8 before returning to London. Gilkes also attended Eugenie's wedding in 2018.
Gilkes is most known for his former marriage to Bahrain-born fashion designer Misha Nonoo, Meghan Markle's acquaintance who is said to have linked her up with Prince Harry. The two met in France and moved to New York in 2008 to pursue their separate careers. Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, Prince Harry and Meghan, Karlie Kloss, Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry, and Joshua Kushner all attended their three-day wedding in Venice in 2012. In 2017, the couple divorced. As if those royal ties weren't enough, Gilkes and his younger brother Charlie were both said to have dated Pippa Middleton, Kate Middleton's sister.
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Relationship timeline of the new parents
Gilkes and Sharapova were first seen together in January 2018 in Los Angeles. The pair was then seen holding hands at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills in March of that year. The pair made their romance public in October, when they uploaded images on their Instagram profiles while vacationing in the Cotswolds. At the 2019 Met Gala, the couple made their major red carpet debut as a couple. In December 2020, the British businessman proposed to the five-time Grand Slam tennis winner. He gave her a stunning £300,000 ($3,55,649) diamond engagement ring. "I said yes from the first day we met ❤️ This was our little secret, wasn't it @gilkesa," Maria, who revealed their engagement on Instagram, said.
In an interview with MSN.com in September 2021, Maria stated that the couple "haven't set a date" for their marriage owing to "so many uncertainties" surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. "We actually haven't discussed it yet because we want our friends and family to be comfortable in an environment and not feel like they have to attend something," she stated.