I'm a big fan of Sharapova's fragility and pout.
I'm trying to explain what happened in the tennis...
...because it took Venus Williams less than half an hour to demolish Maria Sharapova, and that was inexplicable. This year Sharapova's whole game has come apart. Remember, after all, that this tense and determined girl, born within the radius of Chernobyl fallout and bred in Florida's fetid tennis camps, took Serena Williams apart during a Wimbeldon final at the age of 16. ...
Sharapova's post-match press conference was a helpless, angry, pathetic affair - her eyes slim, expressionless; her lips pursed, thin, and sour; her bravado empty and resentful. Next, rather wrecked by events, she pulled out of the Fed Cup, incensing Russia's chief tennis coach Vladimir Kamelzon, who said, "her closest advisors are Americans and they would never allow her to play for Russia" and "I'm telling you, just forget about all these promises." But really, so what. There are athletes divorced from patriotic aspiration; there are of course many and lots, probably all, in it for personal glory. In Sharapova's case it goes further. Not exactly Russian, or quite American, without discernable or admitted interests outside tennis, and no mental trace or clue beyond relentless forward drive and singular focus. Bred, then, not raised, a physical production, drilled on tennis courts since early girlhood....
And, this being the case, the collapse of her game must be creating catastrophic psychological chaos of a deeper, colder kind than, say, the explosions of warm, tortured Amelie Mauresmo. Though it's hard to care about.
Now, the resurgance of Venus Williams was itself spectacular and unexpected. Her strangely brittle limbs had been all broken up with tears and strains for months, and in their last match Sharapova had demolished her. So this year Venus Williams came from nowhere. Down-seeded, exiled to outer courts, no one was paying much attention until, suddenly, they noticed that Williams had got through the first four rounds with seering, ruthless dispatch. She looked amazing. No "innovative" tennis skirts, just white vest and shorts; her hair unfussy and functional, blunt fringe held back by curt visor. Slim arms and calfs and thighs, with all that explosive power packed within, but always vulnerable, liable to snap or quall (hence strange, and brittle seemed, maybe for the first time, perfectly primed to cope with what they could inflict. And fra
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