The selling of Maria Sharapova--part 2

Yesterday, I wrote about the literal dangers that young, presumably attractive WTA players now face because their looks have been sold to market the tour. I cut these players some slack because they are so very young and perhaps don't understand the folly of what they are doing, especially in today's post-Second Wave environment in which sexist behaviors that used to be condemned are now celebrated. But the tour itself should be ashamed, as should the parents and managers of the women in question.

We saw the whole tennis=sex phenomenon explode when Anna Kournikova came on the scene. Kournikova's career was cut short (although she has not retired from the tour) by a series of injuries, but she has continued to make millions of dollars for her looks. As for Sharapova (whom I do not understand why people find physically attractive, but then, it is the unformed face on which people can project the most), her manager, Max Eisenbud, has been quoted as saying "Within a few years the name 'Maria Sharapova' will be a brand as universally recognized as Calvin Klein, BMW and Rolex."

And there you have it. You may be wondering where Sharapova's parents are in all this. Her father appears to have all the makings of a Jim Pierce, a Damir Dokic, or a Peter Graf--the troika of tennis father hell--and I don't even like to think about his possible motives. Her mother appears to be absent from the tennis scene. In short, there may not be anyone around who can protect her from what is happening to her.

Though she certainly didn't mean to be amusing, Sharapova was pitifully funny when she said in a recent interview that she was 100% tennis player when she was on the court and 100% businesswoman off the court. Bear in mind that she just turned eighteen. She is quite poised and has learned what it is like to suffer--her early years were far from carefree. She was taken from her mother when she was very young and sent to train vigorously in America, where she said the social climate was hardly conducive to her feeling accepted.

She is also an extremely talented tennis player, though she has not yet learned to play on the clay courts, and prior to the start of this season's Wimbledon tournament, most forecasters did not expect her to defend her 2004 title (that may change now that Justine Henin-Hardenne has been eliminated). Sharapova, who also won the WTA 2004 end-of-year championship and who has won a total of ten singles titles and three doubles titles, is hardly a flash in the pan. But even if she keeps her eye on the ball and doesn't succomb to the dangers of celebrity, she is still the biggest cog in the WTA sex marketing machine.

Maria herself put it best. Speaking of Kournikova, she said in an interview: "People seem to forget that Anna isn't in the picture anymore. It's Maria-time now."