BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Maria Sharapova – WOW!

Some famous sports stars are always associated with their birthplace. McEnroe is the archetypal New Yorker. The oddity of the name alone meant that most people knew Australian ex-champion jockey Scobie Breasley came from Wagga Wagga. Fred Trueman is Yorkshire personified. And now we have the Ice Maiden, the Siberian Tiger, and no doubt many other epithets still to be applied to Russia’s latest and greatest tennis champion. Over the past two weeks we have been repeatedly told the rags-to-riches tale of her father’s emigration from Russia to The States, and his all-or-nothing gamble of dumping her on Bollettieri’s doorstep. However, a little more digging reveals an even more intriguing aspect to her life story. Her parents were not originally from Siberia, but lived in Belarus until 1986, when Chernobyl blew up. Their fear over the potential damage to both themselves and their unborn child caused them to move to the Siberian forestry town of Nyagan, east of the Urals, so the emergence of this new star is perhaps one of the few good things to emerge from the world’s worst nuclear disaster!

An absolute fairy story, and if you were fortunate enough to see her destruction of Serena Williams live, then remember well her unconstrained joy, her father’s ecstasy, the mobile phone not working (apparently it was a Chinese model), and the unnerving combination of girlish charm and precocious poise with which she faced the cameras and microphones. I say ‘remember well’ because you can be certain that no matter what anyone says, it will never be the same again! She’s now a superstar, and will become an even bigger one, and nobody can claim that she’s had it reluctantly thrust upon her – she’s already got a modelling contract! The best that level-headed sports fans can hope for is that she will handle the combined pressures somewhat more graciously than her defeated opponent has done in similar circumstances. Sure, Williams Jr. has been taught all the required inter-personal skills, and been to charm school, but it doesn’t come naturally to her, and it doesn’t take much for the facade to slip. For instance, the exaggerated false pleasure when parading her runner-up trophy around Centre Court was a grotesque parody that unfairly intruded on Sharapova’s big moment. Then, in the post-match press conference she embarked on another rambling, semi-grammatical series of responses, in which her true colours occasionally surfaced, as in the following extracts;

“I don't know. I had a few chances. I had a lot of chances, but I didn't take them. So, whatever.”

“I'm not a tennis superstar – I’m a superstar.”

“I'm just kidding. I don't want to sound like I'm pontificating or anything. Although, I am a little bit.”

“Oh, I'm at like 20% right now, so... I'm at 20%, I think. But I think everyone here knows I can do so much better than what I did the past few matches. We can't deny that.”

And to prove beyond all doubt that she hasn’t yet realised her ship has landed on planet Earth;

“The lion is the king of the jungle but the tiger is the king of the forest."

Contrast that with the men’s final, in which world number one Roger Federer was given a stiff examination by Andy Roddick, before successfully defending his crown. I’m sure both players acknowledge that the match could have turned the other way on just a handful of key points. No histrionics, no delaying tactics, no play acting – just a pulsating demonstration of the highest quality tennis. When the presentation started, there was massive sustained applause for Roddick, which reflected an appreciation not only of his performance, but also of the impeccable manner in which he had conducted himself. At the request of the organisers, he too made a circuit of the court for the benefit of the spectators, but did nothing to steal Federer’s thunder, and his diffident smile obviously hid his true disappointment at not winning. When BBC’s Sue Barker asked him whether this was the start of a rivalry between the two players he modestly replied;

“I’ve got to start winning some of them before you can call it a rivalry.”

For Federer’s part, his modesty is perfectly represented in what is apparently his personal motto;

“It’s nice to be important, but it’s important to be nice.”

He’s also got a ready-made career awaiting him whenever he decides to retire from tennis. After his maiden Wimbledon win last year he was presented with a cow and it has now had a baby, so he should be well set up as a dairy farmer.

Despite the potential of its high-speed straights, hairpin bend, and chicane just before the line, the Magny Cours circuit was unable to coax anything special from the Formula 1 field. Once again Schumacher parlayed his grid position into first place without actually overtaking anyone, thanks to an admittedly sharp piece of thinking by his team, who successfully gambled on chucking in an unscheduled extra pit stop, and getting their driver to put in some fast laps with his lighter fuel load. The absolute confidence that Ferrari now have in their overall superiority is well summed up by the man himself, who said;

“There was no risk of falling back, just the opportunity to go forwards - and we did it."

As both Rossi and Gibernau retired after falls on what is known as a notoriously bumpy Rio track, there is no change at the top of the MotoGP table. Unfortunately I can’t bring you any first hand impressions of the race as they re-shuffled the normal programme, and held the big bike race before the 125 and 250 ones, so I missed it!

Euro 2004 ended in heartache for the hosts Portugal, but a message of hope and encouragement to all aspiring champions from the underdogs Greece who proved that the multi-million dollar squads of the bigger footballing nations do not guarantee success. As TV pundit Alan Hansen said;

“The great thing about it is there's still hope for Scotland.”

With the football celebrations in Athens and the Olympics to come next month, expect the global sales of Ouzo to rocket!

I noticed one other small item, which illustrates that someone else is not blinded by the glint of silver. Man U’s chief executive David Gill told reporters that United couldn’t afford the £50 million valuation which Everton are supposedly going to slap on Wayne Rooney. He prudently explained;

"We can't afford to spend £45m or £50m on one player. One reason why we run a successful operation is because we work within financial parameters."

The Tour de France has started with a bang. In the short time trial that constitutes the Prologue, Lance Armstrong threw down the gauntlet straight away by storming to second place (behind a specialist time trial rider). Then in the first two proper stages he kept himself safely in the leading bunch and is ominously placed to strike when it pleases him.

Michael Vaughan’s undisguised pleasure at last week’s return to form by England with a win over the Windies was short lived. The Kiwis have already booked their place in the final of the triangular series after thrashing the hosts by 8 wickets with 2 overs to spare. Pity that the century by Freddie Flintofff in his successful return after injury was to no avail. England’s final appearance now requires them to beat the Windies again today and hope that the Kiwis do the same on Thursday.

The first Test between Sri Lanka and the Aussies was a slightly odd affair. I don’t think you could imagine that the Aussies would be dismissed twice for just over 200, and yet win the match inside 3 days by 149 runs. This naturally drew several comments about the quality of the pitch, but captain Ricky Ponting (who missed the match for a family funeral) has come back with a typically hard-nosed approach, telling everyone to stop bleating, and remember that truly great teams should be able to win matches on any surface under any conditions. In the end there was no unexpected sighting of Murali, so Shane has moved closer to the world record mark, and needs another 8 wickets in the remaining Test to take the mantle.

South Africa’s Retief Goosen followed his US Open win with another imposing performance around the K Club layout outside Dublin, for a 5-shot winning margin. In the worst of the weekend weather the course was providing almost as much trouble as the tricked-up Shinnecock layout did throughout the entire US Open, but once the wind and rain died down, it became a much fairer test of skill, and it was encouraging to see Lee Westwood in a tie for second place.

Over the pond, the Western Open was won by Canada’s Stephen Ames from a somewhat undistinguished field, but the main talking point is something for which Bob mildly rebuked me last week. Although recording that the event was sponsored by Cialis, I had failed to note that this was in fact a new type of super-Viagra. I am unable to repeat the whole of his message due to the decency laws, so I guess we’ll just have to wrap up by assuming that if the sponsors handed out freebies, the entire field would presumably have been playing with stiff shafts.

Winners this week came from Russia, Switzerland, Greece, Estonia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, ………

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Sue Barker opened her on-court interview with Andy Roddick by referring to Federer’s ability to absorb whatever punishment Roddick could inflict, and still come back. The humble American commented;

“I threw the kitchen sink at him but he went to the bathroom and threw back the tub!”

Sharapova charmed the press at the post-match conference, and only once gave a glimpse of any smugness with her achievement;

“I was just there to go out and play my game, and figure out a way to win, and figure out what I needed to do just to get used to her game a little bit. Did that pretty fast.”

 And she momentarily lost her sense of perspective when telling Sue Barker that she wanted to thank her father and others who had supported her ‘throughout my career’!

The Smurfit European Open at Ireland’s K Club was treated to several periods of the Emerald Isle’s famous ‘soft rain’, during one of which Steve Beddow reminded us of the saying that Ireland “would be a great country if you could put a roof on it.”

There was a flurry of letters from British expats of Celtic origin in the Gulf News recently, objecting to reports about the likelihood of ‘British’ football hooliganism hitting Euro 2004 (unfounded in the event), when in fact it was those nasty Englishmen who were the potential troublemakers. After a suitable hush another letter appeared pointing out that the English League club which currently had the most supporters under banning orders was in fact Cardiff City.

Depends on your definition of ….

Singer Glen Campbell has gone off the rails a bit and was recently hauled up again for drink-driving. In a TV interview he explained;

"I wasn't really that drunk. I was just over-served."  

Alex Salmond, a Scottish Nationalist parliamentarian, made a rather mischievous, but amusing, observation on Tony Blair’s pro-American crusade;

ON THE BOX  
(All live on Supersport; Abu Dhabi timings; GMT +4)

Golf            Scottish Open from Loch Lomond

Thursday            17:30 – 20:30  
Friday                18:00 – 21:00
Saturday            18:00 – 20:30
Sunday               16:30 – 19:45

Golf     John Deere Classic from TPC at Deere Run, Illinois

Thu/Fri             24:00
Sat/Sun            22:00

Rugby            International: New Zealand – Pacific Islanders

Saturday            11:20

Rugby             Currie Cup from S. Africa

Friday              17:15            Eagles – Cheetahs
Saturday           16:45            Griquas – Blue Bulls
                        19:00            Lions – W. Province

Formula 1            British GP from Silverstone

Friday                17:00 – 18:00            Practice 2
Saturday            11:45 – 12:45            Practice 3
                         13:15 – 14:00            Practice 4
                         15:45 – 18:00            Qualifying
Sunday               15:30                        Race

Motorbikes            Superbike Championship from Laguna Seca, California

Sunday              03:00 – 04:00   Superpole
                        23:00               Race 1
Monday             02:15               Race 2

Cycling            Tour de France

Daily from 16:15 to 19:45 (except Monday – rest day)

Cricket            2^nd Test Australia – Sri Lanka from Cairns

Friday to Tuesday daily at 03:45 – 11:15 

Cricket            ODI triangular series in England

Tuesday             13:15 – 21:45   England – Windies at Lords
Thursday            13:15 – 21:45   NZ – Windies at The Rose Bowl
Saturday             13:15 – 21:45   Final at Lords

Athletics            IAAF Super GP from Lausanne

Tuesday (6^th)            21:30 – 24:00