V Krishnaswamy: Sport's new draw

BIZSPORT

MOVE over, Anna. Move aside, Williams sisters. Gabriela (Sabatini), you are only a distant memory. The next big thing has arrived. And it has arrived on really long legs.

The long blonde hair blows you away, and the smile melts men in an instant. And the next thing you know, she will be selling you perfumes, designer outfits, cellphones, sports kit and whatever else you can think of.

In the meantime, her managers will be counting the moolah, which experts reckon could touch $150 million in a decade's time. By then she will be just 27. Ladies and gentleman, welcome Maria Sharapova, the world's new sports icon.

Anna never won a tournament. The Williams won too many too soon and their muscles suggested they didn't need a racquet to keep rivals at bay. Sabatini of the brooding good looks and jet black hair had a rose named after her just like Grace Kelly, Queen Elizabeth, John F Kennedy and Pablo Picasso and a perfume, too, that went by her name.

Now it is time for Maria Sharapova, with a story so moving and a face so enchanting that it has marketing managers behaving like lovesick lads on the courtside. Just 17, and a champion at All England Championships at Wimbledon, beating no less an opponent than Serena Williams, who was on a hat-trick.

For the time being, there will be respite for Tiger Woods, who has on a daily basis been under the scanner for failing to add to his list of Majors. David Beckham can carry on his life with wife Victoria as tabloids concentrate on Maria rather than the kiss-and-tell girls eager to cash in on Beck's popularity.

The media and sports marketing world has found a new superstar. For the next few months, we shall be hearing of how companies are queuing outside Maria's agent, Max Eisenbud's door. Of how they are outbidding each other to get the right to plaster Maria's face on their products.

The $700 that her father Yuri Sharapov came to the United States with will be the most talked about point and the tabloids will try to ferret out the inspiration "" other than her dad, mom and coaches "" who Maria spoke about on Centre Court after receiving the Venus Rosewater salver.

A fresh face, a Russian one at that, Maria's is a story of a family that first left the area near nuclear-disaster-struck Chernobyl for Siberia. From there, the father and daughter left for the US and the mother followed two years later.

The story of convincing the world's best tennis academy owner, Nick Bolletieri, who produced the likes of Andre Agassi, Monica Seles and Jim Courier "" and yes, Anna Kournikova too "" among others to take her in. The lonely days in a dorm with girls much older and hardly receptive to her presence amongst them.

Then, there's the story of a coach, Robert Lansdorp, whose assembly line includes Tracy Austin, Pete Sampras and Lindsay Davenport, moulding young Sharapova into a nerveless killer.

The father left the daughter in the Academy and found a job on a construction site and a room for $150 a month. Over weekends, he walked an hour to the Academy to meet his daughter, because he could not afford any other means of transport.

The years of struggle continued till just over a year and a half ago, when the talent scouts at IMG spotted her and signed her on a million dollar "" yes, a million dollar deal "" for Nike apparel and Prince racquets.

A year ago at Wimbledon, her looks made more news than her fourth-round performance and this year the WTA thought it fit to use her as one of the models to re-build their marketing image. The poster said, "A Woman's Gotta Do What A Woman's Gotta Do".

Within a year, Sharapova did what she had to do. She won a couple of WTA titles and then the Wimbledon itself. The rest, as they will soon be saying, is history.

A $700 investment is now expected to fetch returns in excess of $150 million in next ten years. Not bad, not bad at all. Anyone care for a few shares in a "Blond Chip" called Maria Sharapova Inc?