Posted on 08/28/2003 6:53:53 AM PDT by presidio9
NLY one forbidden Russian could pout her way into the hearts of middle-age men seeking a Kevin Spacey moment amid the "American Beauty" rose petals.
Only one sassy diva would respond to a marriage proposal from a teenage fan panting among the Clearasil crowd by sneering, "You couldn't afford me."
There is only one Anna Kournikova. As one of the first downloadable darlings of the Internet, as the savior of a once glam-challenged Tour, as the mystery blonde from Moscow, Anna will never be duplicated.
To all the player agents who believe they've Got Next, to all the officials looking to replicate the Tour's Rapunzel with a Daniela Hantuchova or a Maria Sharapova or an American supernova, they should get ova it.
"I think people should stop looking for a babe," Jelena Dokic said.
After all, babes don't make the audience; the audience makes the babes.
For tennis fans, a winning personality and a personality that wins make the ultimate aphrodisiac. Who is more beloved? The Andre Agassi of streaked mane or the one with the head of an Airstream trailer? Who was more attractive? The cold Chrissie Evert of her youth or the gracious, mature one of her prime?
In the absence of the injured Williams sisters, the United States Tennis Association, up to its corporate collars in demographics, is trying to manufacture attraction by placing all the blond bombs on the show courts at the United States Open.
Only a few folks fell for it when the unseeded Ashley Harkleroad - billed as the American Anna by Us magazine before she became the first junior girl to appear at Arthur Ashe Stadium in 2001 - landed on the marquee court again yesterday for her second-round match.
In front of dozens, the 18-year-old Harkleroad blew up at the umpire during her loss to Vera Zvonareva.
This was not the close-up of a marketing dream. This was not the way to grow the game, either. Expanding the sport doesn't begin with middle-age suburban cyberfellas going gaga over another Anna; it begins with a tennis audience the Williams sisters have just begun to tap into.
Miss them, don't you? Polarizing but always entertaining, Serena and Venus Williams have made themselves impossible to ignore. "You can't win either way with us," Serena Williams said yesterday.
She is wrong, for once. Tennis wins with them. This is what is so confounding about the U.S.T.A. and the WTA. After a recent study for the national tennis association about participation levels in tennis in the United States, officials discovered that one out of every three new players is either African-American or Hispanic. Also, 75 percent of all recreational players chase balls on a public court.
What a coincidence: Venus and Serena are African-American, and they began playing on public courts. And yet the U.S.T.A. fails to reflect its own findings by presenting Harkleroad with show-court appearances for two years, while another rising 18-year-old American, Angela Haynes, made her United States Open debut on Court 11 on Tuesday.
Like the Williams sisters, Haynes is beautiful and smart and out of Compton, Calif. Also like Serena and Venus, she is public-court talent who happens to be black. The daily double, according to the U.S.T.A.'s own research.
"Tennis is still an upper-class sport," Haynes's father, Fred, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "You still have racism in how it's run, but they can't be that out front about it. So they make sure you don't get what the next Anna Kournikova gets, like exposure. Yes, Anna is pretty. Yes, she's blond. That's what the world wants in its stereotype of beauty.
"Everyone wants pretty - and to me, there are all kinds of pretty - but people also love good tennis. That's what it should be about."
It should be, but it's not. In fact, the WTA may become just as culpable as the U.S.T.A. for a move toward exploiting its blond roots, particularly given the Tour chief Larry Scott's comments about age eligibility.
Created to prevent child-star burnout (see Jennifer Capriati's dark period), the rule restricting how many events players can enter between the ages of 14 and 18 could be relaxed soon. Not coincidentally, the telegenic Sharapova is 16. As Scott said earlier this week, "Times change."
This is code for: we're desperate. Knowing what suckers crowds are for pixies, the Tour could be flirting with a slippery slope if its strategy is to revive its growth through the promotion of Lolitas.
Only one young Russian has enough pouty appeal to make the ratings leap with her all-"American Beauty." There is only one Anna.
Who else could be so popular in absentia? Neither a career devoid of victories nor years of injuries to Kournikova have slowed the churn of the search engines. For the week ending Aug. 23, Lycos placed her at No. 20 for most Web visits per subject, right behind the Blaster Worm at No. 19 but ahead of Christina Aguilera at No. 22.
Who else can claim such company? There are many who would like to slip into Anna's celebrity skin, but the search for the new Anna should end. The sport's growth is in its diversity, not blond ambitions.
The injured Anna Kournikova has lots of time these days for non-tennis activities, like throwing out the first ball Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.
I can't help wondering what Selena Roberts looks like, but I can guarantee you I wouldn't pay money to watch her play tennis.
That's how Mo Dowd got her job.
Hey! I resent that!
I'm a young, rural cyberfella.
Halle Barry is beautiful...the Williams sisters are...ummmm, uh...well, they don't turn many heads.
Ashley Harkleroad
You said it. The idea that the Williams Sisters are in any way attractive is politically correct nonsense. There are plenty of beautiful black women in the world. Venus and Serena are not among them.
Frankly, women's tennis will be far more interesting and entertaining WITHOUT the Williams sisters.
The real issue is that the bull dykes who have better abilities are resentfull of Anna (and those like her) because she gets the attention and the big dollar endorsements. There was massive grumbling among the female tennis players when Anna had that investment company deal with those commercials. They didn't like a very marginal player getting all the attention and money.
As one of Rush's undeniable truths of life says, feminism was created to allow unattractive women better access to the mainstream.
Sure, she's known for her looks and she never won a singles tournament, but for a short time she was playing competitive tennis at a very high level.
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