Los Angeles, 23 October 2010 | AFP

Three time grand slam champion and former world number one tennis player Maria Sharapova and Los Angeles Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic are engaged to be married, Vujacic announced on Friday.

“We are engaged and are both really happy. It’s good and now we can focus on other things,” Slovenian Vujacic said in San Diego where the Lakers are playing an NBA pre-season game against Golden State.

Vujacic revealed that he had asked for Sharapova’s hand on the one year anniversary of their first meeting.

“It was probably old school. I had to do it like a gentlemen.”

Russian Sharapova, 23, won Wimbledon in 2004, the US Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008.