Sharapova becomes U.N. goodwill envoy

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Top tennis player Maria Sharapova, of Russia, has become a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Development Program.

"One of my proudest contracts ever," said Sharapova after signing on for a symbolic $1 year salary as an envoy focusing on helping with recovery efforts following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The 19-year-old Sharapova also announced she and her newly created private foundation would donate $100,000 to eight UNDP projects in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine that try to assist those areas still blighted by the Chernobyl accident.

The projects aim to restore hospitals and sports facilities, improve access to computers, and promote ecological awareness across the three countries.

"I was just briefed on Chernobyl effects and how I will be involved with it, and I'm just so excited to be a part of this process, I can't wait. I can't wait to help with everything I can," she told reporters at U.N. World Headquarters in New York Wednesday.

Winner of two Grand Slam titles and currently ranked No. 1 in the world, she has a personal connection to Chernobyl. In the year before she was born, Sharapova's family fled the Belarusian city of Gomel for Siberia because of concerns about radiation in the wake of the accident.

"That's why it means so much to me to be a part of this project, because I was sort of part of it as well. I hope that I can go there and make field trips... I still have family in Gomel, Belarus -- my grandmother lives there," she said.