I don’t know what Maria Sharapova needs more if she hopes to survive her Australian Open semifinal with the feral and precious one, Justine Henin-Hardenne—a complete, overnight game makeover, or one of her pal Maria Kirilenko’s Stella McCartney-designed tennis dresses.
That blue parachute Maria’s been wearing makes her look like she ought to have a duster in one hand and a can of Pledge in the other. Meet Maria Sharapova, the world’s sexiest top!
Does this matter? Sure it matters! Think I’d be writing about it if this were just some dopey fashion thing?
Regular TW comment poster Lydia says I’m a “sexist,” but let’s get real here; we all know that you’re only pretty as you feel. And Maria couldn’t have been feeling too pretty before she played her countrywoman Nadia Petrova in that billowy blue garbage bag. Just when you Sharapova haters had real cause for worry about Miss Perfect (she’s so appealing in such a straightforward, normal way that I can’t stand it!) winning here, Omar the Tentmaker provides deliverance!
My prediction: No way Sharapova wins the tournament in that dress. It’s a karma thing.
Actually, you know how sometimes a match is so awful that it’s kind of fun to watch, in a blooper-reel kind of way? Well, this was like that. Here are but a few of the gory details—you can wallow in more if you wish, in Dan Oakes' droll and entertaining report from The Age:
- By the start of the second set, the spectators—and they’re a pretty polite lot down here—were actually laughing out loud at some of the errors, and amusing themselves by imitating Maria’s Comanche war whoop—that demented shriek that can’t ever be confused with an old-fashioned, woman-at-work grunt.
- The Russians (wonder if they got into the vodka and had a few pops before the match) combined to commit 20 double faults in the two-set match, and nine service breaks in 22 games.
- The total number of unforced errors was almost three times that of winners (85 to 31).
- The women hit a grand total of four backhand winners in the entire match.
- It was so painful that Petrova started crying (and this was the woman who had said she was going to fire her coach for not being sufficiently “tough”).
All in, I’d say Maria is in big trouble. The farther she gets, the worse she looks. But to her credit, she isn’t spinning the situation, or trying to turn moose poop into ice cream. Here’s how she analyzed her chances going forward:
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That’s well put. Never underestimate a realist. But remember, Justine is no Nadia Petrova.