Style, rather than substance, is the talking point of women’s tennis.
A new world order emerged in the years after the Second World War, not only because geographical boundaries were redrawn, but also because fashion invaded women’s tennis. Till then, women played in pristine whites and everyone looked at the game. But in 1949, designer Ted Tinling stitched a band of lace on the edges of the panties worn by Gertrude Agusta Moran, a leggy Californian. Among gasps and sounds of choking, headline writers promptly dubbed her “Gorgeous Gussie” and a star was born. Photographers crawled behind her on their stomachs for the most advantageous camera angle. A racehorse, an aircraft and a special sauce were named after her. Tinling was accused of introducing sin and vulgarity to a gentleman’s game and was banned from Wimbledon for the next 33 years.
This newspaper and this columnist have always taken a tolerant and accommodative stance on issues, but perhaps the time has come to invoke Wimbledon’s demureness of 60 years ago and crack down on fashion; it is ruining women’s tennis. Since the women can buy and wear expensive and fashionable clothes, they seem to think it qualifies them to become successful fashion designers. They appear more focused on fashion, their primary concern the little catwalk between shots. The focus, as reportage from recent grand slam tournaments suggests, is less and less on the game and more and more on who is wearing what. Bets and edgy anticipation precede the unfurling of what the female stars would wear at major tournaments. The spectators can be forgiven for holding their breath as they wait not for the next breathtaking shot but the next wardrobe malfunction (which is no longer rare). Around every grand slam, listings come out of the hottest female players, those who look the best in bikinis, and so on. Little wonder, then, that no champion player has emerged in women’s tennis in half a decade or so. Ana Ivanovic won the French two years ago, but was hailed more as a pin-up and has done little with her racquet to change that perception. Dinara Safina, who focuses less on fashion, was number one for an unduly long time and reviled for not winning a grand slam. Curiously, the hottest players today are the two Belgians — Kim Clijsters and Justin Henin — who have come out of retirement, and two Chinese, both of whom, at 27, are in the autumn of their careers.
The last real prospect was Maria Sharapova, and she confirmed her billing as Kournikova with a game by winning Wimbledon in 2004. However, despite a second grand slam win at the US Open in 2006, she remains just that, a prospect. The biggest news she made last year was for her warmup wardrobe at Wimbledon: A Nike military-style jacket. At the Australian Open that culminates today, she launched her signature collection. She is to model seven dresses and a number of two-piece outfits that promise to stud the 2010 calendar. Pity she could not show too many of them in Australia as she lost in the first round.
