Melbourne: One of the reasons for Anna Kournikova’s success was the illusion of availability she created in the minds of the deluded.
It meant that if she was ever married to ice hockey player Sergei Fedorov it was only in secret and, towards the end of her playing days, she never took the pout off her face for long enough to confirm the gossip-sheet rumours that she was Mrs Enrique Iglesias.
To her sponsors, Kournikova would have been worth double as a supposed single woman than she would have been as somebody else’s wife.
So it is going to be intriguing to see how the teenage boys of Melbourne feel about Maria Sharapova as she arrives to play in the Australian Open with a rock on her engagement finger. This might just be the year that the posters start to come down from the walls.
What we can say for certain is that this year will be of great importance to Sharapova the tennis player, as it promises to show whether the Russian should still be regarded as a force at the majors, and whether she can ever win another Grand Slam trophy to go with the 2004 Wimbledon title she acquired at the age of 17, and her victories at the 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open.
The pattern used to be that Sharapova would win one of the big prizes every couple of years, but that was broken last season.
Ever since she had pain in her shoulder, and was forced to invite the surgeon’s blade in late 2008, and then to remodel her service action, she has not been the same player. But it would be wrong to start suggesting, after she disclosed during her off season that she had accepted an offer of marriage from Sasha Vujacic of the New Jersey Jets, that the former world No. 1 is now a basketball WAG.
As Kim Clijsters has demonstrated over the past year or so, by winning a couple of US Open titles, there is no reason why going from Miss to Mrs should in any way diminish your ability to win trophies; there is no choice to be made between the altar and the podium.
The decline in Sharapova’s results came after she left Melbourne as the champion. At last season’s majors, she went no further than the fourth round.
She lost in the third round of the French Open to Justine Henin, in the last 16 of the Wimbledon Championships to Serena Williams, and in the fourth round of the US Open to Caroline Wozniacki, though you are going to get unlucky when you drop out of the top 10 as that gives you no protection against meeting the top seeds so early in the fortnight.
The earliest defeat of her Grand Slam season was in the first round in Melbourne against Maria Kirilenko. And since she missed the 2009 Australian Open because of her shoulder troubles, that meant that Sharapova has not won a match here since she defeated Ana Ivanovic in the 2008 final.
With Williams unable to attempt a defence of her title this month, after injuring a foot when she stepped on broken glass in a Munich restaurant last July, there are opportunities for players such as Sharapova, the world No. 16.
With regard to her tennis life, the most important decision that Sharapova took during her winter break was not who she would marry, but which racket she would swing. Players only tend to swap racket manufacturers only if the new frames feel right.
Sharapova’s Slovenian husband-to-be is nicknamed ‘The Machine’ by those who follow the NBA. You can imagine that the future Mrs Vujacic would not mind again becoming known for the consistency and ruthlessness of her performances. The Daily Telegraph
