Tennis: Ra! Ra! Sharapova!
I'm trying very hard NOT to write about football these days, which explains why the posts have been less frequent lately. The problem is, it is that time of year when most of all the other sports have wound up their seasons. All the major badminton tournaments have ended. The Olympics has gone by in a blink of an eye.
The only thing left to watch other than football is baseball, which I understand quite well (due to a youth wasted on reading Japanese baseball-related manga) but just don't see the point of; American foot-*scoff*-ball; GOLF (see this post for my thoughts on THIS game), and tennis, which has already finished its Grand slams, but has something (or rather, someONE) that the other sports don't - MARIA SHARAPOVA.
Ever since Anna Kournikova burst onto the scene a few years back (or more), women's tennis has been a lot more interesting to watch. Of course, before Kournikova, there was Gabriella Sabatini, but that was about it. Martina Hingis was rather cute (in fact, I loved it when she partnered Kournikova in doubles), and a big loss to the women's game when she retired so early in her career. Kournikova herself has pretty much faded away from the courts (though her face is still everywhere).
Thank god then, for Maria Sharapova.
Sharapova is the hottest thing in women's tennis right now. Although she's just one member of the this year's Russian women's tennis revolution (There are currently five Russians in the Top Ten; plus Elena Dementieva lost TWO all-Russian Grand Slam finals - to Svetlana Kuznetsova at the US Open and Anastasia Myskina at the French), she certainly is the prettiest, in my humble opinion. Hehe.
When she won Wimbledon this year, she proved that she is no Kournikova, who merely looked good, but still can't win a SINGLE tournament. Although Sharapova didn't do that well in the US Open, just recently, she has picked up the pace again, winning the Korean and Japan Opens back to back.
But enough talk, here then is a gratuitous photo of her winning the Japan Open, courtesy of Sharapova fan-site Maria World. Enjoy! :-D
