Maria Sharapova survived a third set tie break scare to keep her Roland Garros ambitions alive amid the showers in Paris but her tennis career is starting to look like a side show to other activities. Her iconic looks, svelte limbs, graceful blonde hair, sharp eyes seem to bend the camera to its will. Suddenly we have Maria not just the on court tennis player, but Maria the fashion icon who has the deal with Tiffany's Paris to make her earrings and a pearl button for her exclusive Nike dress. We have Maria holding her birthday party at Tejune New York. We have Maria the richest girl in world sport, bar none.
This girl turned 21 on April 22. Her fashion birthday party was hosted for by TAG Heueur watches. She is sponsored by Sony Eriksson. Her web site http://www.mariasharapova.com/has flash and wallpapers, videos, her blog and forums. This girl is turning into the face of the summer and probably the face or maybe the body of the decade. And she is still reassuringly good at tennis. Already she is 2/1 to win Wimbledon.
There is something in the way she handles herself that is immediately recognisable. Sometimes it is not even remotely elegant, she can look like a gangling young giraffe on court, when she launches herself into her serve she has both feet off the ground and is propelling herself like a child jumping on a bed, or when she wins a point and hunches in on herself in that familiar I-am-not-praying rather I-am-piston-machine like gesture of triumph clutching her racket like it is a teddy bear. What she never does is look like the blonde from next door. It is always Maria. Maria S. Or as the tennis commentators still have it onomatopoeically Shara-pova. It is the pout of the lips, but also the length of her legs. And there is a certain style too as photographers try to manipulate her into poses where her dress will float up or let her knickers slip into lens. She is not an arse girl, not like the iconic girl who scratches her naked bum playing tennis that bedecked a generation of student dorms, but rather a front girl. That is, deliberately or not, her best side and will be the images that stay with the legend as it unfolds.
And a legend is emerging before the world, a legend that rarely speaks, although when she does it is unerringly sensible.
Have you been in love?
I am waiting for it to come to me
Would you pose nude for Playboy
They have not asked me.
The legend that has started to move beyond the confines of the tennis court. Babe or bitch? Who knows?
The truth is she is neither. Like with her tennis she is resilient, committed, feet on the ground and although she comes across visually as the dizzy air head blonde she is in reality hard, sensible, practical, all traits that were instilled in her from her childhood in Siberia. The truth is she is a lot more mature than most girls on the circuit, most girls of her age. The image is the product of manipulation. And this steely approach to everything Maria has made her the richest sportswoman on the planet.
The full background is capably captured by Paul Kimmage for Times Online here . Read and it be amazed as much by her life as her tennis
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