For one crazy 24 hour period, fans of the No. 2 player in the world thought she had changed her name to Maria Shear-apova.

The popular Russian player posted a pair of photos to her Facebook account on Tuesday sporting a supposed severely shortened hair cut, only to reveal on Wednesday that the whole thing was a gag, and the new 'do, just a wig.

To ease the stress from her legion of fans, Sharapova posted yet another photo on Wednesday with her still-long hair dangling halfway down her back, along with the following message:

"Wow, when I posted those photos with the short hair I had no idea everyone would all go bananza [sic]....( my dear friends, I never actually said I cut my hair!) so for the sake of my email inbox and it's stressful 24 hours, I would like to showyou the below pictures...my hair is still long...and blonde...and well it's pretty much the same! We did a shoot a few days ago and I sported all types of hair styles...long and yes short (a wig!!!)."

Judging by their comments on Facebook and Twitter, plenty of Sharapova's nearly seven million Facebook fans were taken in by the gag.

In the 24 hours between posting the photos and revealing their false nature, Sharapova received some 9,000 comments on her Facebook page.

According to the Moscow Times, fans left comments in English, Spanish and Russian, from the very positive "I love it!" to the quite negative "you look old now" and "Nooooooo!"

In other Sharapova news, the star signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Samsung to promote her brand and its in her native Russia.

Sharapova, who turned 25 on Wednesday, is 18-4 to date in 2012. She returns to action next week in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany.