Sibling rivalry (or Wimbledon 2009)

They did it again, didn’t they? Decimated everyone else and made the women’s singles a family affair, yet again! Centre court this year is the domain of the Williams sisters. I wonder how it feels to play against your own sibling. Would it be just tennis at stake here? For the sisters, both phenomenally talented, the other must’ve represented the opposition most of the times growing up. Did one of them ever wish (at least) fleetingly that the other did not exist? Would it have been the same, if there were just one of them? Probably the sibling rivalry honed them into what they are today.

Much as I admire their tennis, ruthless, efficient, power-driven, I can’t help missing players like Graf and later Sharapova. Their game was/is superb and yet they manage to stay fetchingly feminine. I know I am possibly stuck in gender stereotypes and that ‘come-hither’ looks don’t matter when powering a backhand return down the line but the fact is that its not just me who feels this way.

I remember in 1997 Steffi Graf gracing the pages of Sports Illustrated in the swimsuit edition. This is a sports celebrity hall of fame in its own right. She looked demurely sexy in those pictures.
Fast forward to 2003, Sports Illustrated featured Serena Williams, the new face of women’s tennis. Powerful, muscular in a white bikini. Sexy? maybe…
Demure? Not by any stretch of the imagination!

Venus too has featured in the swimsuit edition similarly (un)clad.
Is this something to do with the media with its obsession with celebrities or is it something fed by the demands of a ravenous public?
Why have whaletail pictures of tennis players? If its thong shots or butt floss they want aren’t there thousands of willing models around?

But if they must, they must. My vote, then is for Sharapova. Totally !

Drool!

~ by inmyneed on July 5, 2009.