| |
Selling Sharapova
Despite
salivating sponsors, the savvy Russian and her representatives
are determined to buck the Kournikova-Williams trend.
By Eleanor Preston
 Those
of a cynical turn of mind might have imagined a roomful of
suits somewhere in corporate America coming up with the phenomenon
that is Maria Sharapova. She is as photogenic as she is talented,
and all in all, about as drawing-board perfect as you can
get.
Few athletes in any sport combine such beauty and charm with
the guts and ability to win major titles. In the tennis world,
Anna Kournikova managed one half of the bargain, but was repeatedly
an embarrassing failure at the other half. And while Serena
Williams may be touted by her William Morris representative
as an actress and tennis player, she has not won a Grand Slam
title since signing with Hollywood’s most powerful agency.
Little wonder many interpreted this contract as a signal that
she was more interested in winning an Oscar or an Emmy than
another major tennis trophy.
“Serena has a broad canvas to paint on—sports,
acting, fashion,” says Jill Smoller, Serena’s
representative, apparently unaware that her charge has not
been successful thus far as a Jill-of-all-trades. By beating
Serena in the Wimbledon final, Sharapova proved that the American’s
outside interests and persistent knee injury have combined
to end her tennis supremacy.
With the Wimbledon title already secured at the age of 17,
Sharapova’s career is so soaked in glitter right now
that she has sponsors salivating and the media—both
inside her sport and in the wider world—utterly charmed.
She and her agent, IMG, could be forgiven for hearing the
ringing of cash registers chiming in harmony with every one
of her infamous on-court grunts.
“I think the type of corporation that you’ll see
coming after Sharapova are corporations that are looking to
get teen consumers who are forming their purchasing habits,”
Peter Stern of the Strategic Sports Group was quoted as saying
after Sharapova’s win at Wimbledon. “So to me,
it’s products like soft drinks, telecom or it could
be a credit card company.”
“She has the potential to tap into major advertising
dollars,” said Steve Rosner of New Jersey’s 16W
Marketing.
Thankfully for the world of tennis, the Russian and her representatives
seem determined to buck the Williams-Kournikova trend and
keep winning tennis matches as her first priority. As much
as Williams’s celebrity cache may have brought new fans
to tennis, her frequent absences have also hit tournament
draws and robbed the sport of much needed depth.
“I never think about the numbers,” Sharapova said
on the Today show. “I didn’t even know how much
my Wimbledon winner’s check was for. I still don’t
know. I just wired it to my bank account so I don’t
know what it is.”
“She’s interested in becoming No. 1, so you’re
not going to see her doing 20 or 30 different deals,”
said Max Eisenbud, Sharapova’s agent at IMG, in a statement
that will calm the nerves of those who fear losing Sharapova
to the lure of the lucre.
 Sharapova’s
extraordinary run to the Wimbledon trophy (see “Russian
Revolution,” on page 18) could scarcely have come at
a better time for women’s tennis. Both Justine Henin-Hardenne
and Kim Clijsters were injured, the Williams sisters’
powers (notably Venus’s) appeared to be on the wane
and a dull all-Russian final at Roland Garros suggested a
rather hum-drum future for a sport that once seemed to teem
with marketable talent. Suddenly a ballsy, photogenic, well-spoken
charmer with an aesthetically pleasing game had injected new
life into tennis.
“She’s talented, beautiful and well-spoken, all
at a time when women’s tennis is looking for a new hero,”
said Rosner.
Sharapova’s story alone is the kind of rags-to-riches
yarn that has newspaper sports editors drooling and would
not be out of place in a Disney movie script: a young girl
is born in the frozen wilderness of Siberia, escapes the horror
of a nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, then leaves her mother
and travels thousands of miles across land and sea to make
her fortune in the promised land of America.
Her flawless grasp of American English, which comes from spending
ten of her 17 years in Florida instead of her native Russia,
is another big dollar sign in her favor, for it means she
combines the exotic foreign antecedents and stereotypical
strength of character that fans and advertisers associate
with Russia with an ability to crack jokes in American English.
Of course it hasn’t endeared her to her fellow Russians,
notably French Open champion Anastasia Myskina, who received
barely a tenth of the attention Sharapova got despite winning
Roland Garros.
“Maria has lived in the United States and she’s
more comfortable in English than she is in Russian,”
Myskina told reporters recently.
“Even though I train in America, I’m still Russian,”
countered Sharapova, with the weary air of someone who recognizes
sour grapes when she sees them. “That’s where
I come from. No one is going to tell me where I’m from
because I know where I’m from. Just because I made the
decision to develop my tennis somewhere else…. I think
I made the right decision. I don’t feel American at
all. I feel this is part of my job. I came to the United States
because of my tennis…. I moved here because of my tennis,
not for anything else.”
Sharapova is so poised when it comes to tackling prickly questions
that it’s hard to believe she is still a teenager, but
it’s that very poise—along with some rather fine
tennis—that caught attention during Wimbledon. “I
always tell people the most dangerous thing about Maria is
her intelligence,” said Eisenbud.
The poise was there even as a junior, when Sharapova impressed
those used to dealing with gawky teenagers with an air of
calm self-possession.
Sharapova is too bright and too savvy to ignore all the financial
opportunities that lie at her feet, and neither she nor her
family need ever go hungry again. When asked how she viewed
the business of her sport and her prospects on the catwalk
rather than the court though, she made it clear: For the foreseeable
future at least, such trifles will take second place to playing
tennis.
“Well, it’s not really a side of the game. It’s
something totally different. I just enjoy fashion, and I think
that getting involved with me signing the contract with IMG
models can bring me a little bit closer to the fashion business.
Because when I finish my career, I don’t want to just
stand there and be empty handed and not have many opportunities
behind me.”
“When she comes to New York in August, she’s coming
to win the US Open,” promised Eisenbud. “She won’t
have time for anything else.”
It seems no amount of corporate suits clutching lucrative
checks are going to throw Sharapova off her game anytime soon.
That could be the best news women’s tennis has had in
a long, long time.
|
|
