Few gaze past the veneer, enraptured by her appearance, blonde, tanned, young and beautiful. Anna Kournikova could be a model, an actress but she happens to be a tennis player. She periodically has trouble reconciling her image and a fervent desire to be taken seriously on the court. A hint of petulance surfaces every time at post-game interviews questions stray towards her appearance.
Tiresome, certainly, when one has answered the same query a million times, but Kournikova should acknowledge that it is her looks and not her tennis that earned her preferential treatment at the French Open tennis championships. Unseeded and without a major tournament victory, ostensibly there is no reason for her regular presence on the show courts.
The adulation she receives from the public and the clamour to attend her matches has no origin in the sport. But yesterday at Roland Garros, Kournikova earned the right for the spotlight to fall only on her tennis. Despite losing to number six seed and five times French Open champion Steffi Graf, the 17-year-old Russian offered proof that at some stage she may be remembered for quality of tennis rather than the colour of her dress (it was gold and she designed it herself!).
The contest was closer than the 6-3, 7-6 scoreline suggests and Kournikova should definitely have taken the match to a third set. Leading 6-5, 40-0 and on the Graf serve she was guilty of a couple of elementary mistakes and a little tactical naivety. A backhand pulled into the tramlines and a tentative forehand which limped weakly into the middle of the net facilitated Graf's escape.
The German would later admit: "When I won that game I knew the set was open. I didn't want to give her any easy points and I don't think I did." Therein lay the difference between the two players: Graf made her opponent work hard for each point at that crucial juncture while Kournikova fluctuated between impetuous and indecisive.
Graf was content to rally, work her openings and bide her time in the tie-break: her patience would be rewarded. Still there was much to admire about the manner in which Kournikova operated for most of the second set. She handled Graf's once famed forehand with minimum discomfort and if anything it was the Russian who displayed the greater accuracy and penetration off both wings.
Kournikova also cleverly moved her opponent around the court, switching the angle and depth of her ground strokes and was also prepared to take the shorter balls early and follow into the net. While the double fault nightmare of the Australian Open is a problem that Kournikova seems to have overcome, she still loses too many service games, two in each set. She in turn broke Graf three times in total, coming from 3-0 down in the first set to 3-3 and 3-5 in the second to lead 6-5. The Russian conceded that her strategy was flawed on the big points: "I just didn't use the important points. I didn't take my chances on them, played a little bit too defensive when I should have been more aggressive."
Kournikova was not the only teen queen to perish with the number five seed Venus Williams sent crashing from the tournament by Austrian qualifier Barbara Schwartz, 2-6, 7-6, 6-3.
The colourful American appeared on course for a quarterfinal meeting with number one seed Martina Hingis as she strolled through the first set 6-2 in 31 minutes. When Williams broke in the second game of the second set, the issue seemed set for a speedy conclusion but Schwartz was reading from a different script.
She broke back immediately, held her own serve and began to grow in confidence, matching her opponent's booming ground strokes with those of her own: the more aggressive she became the further behind the baseline Williams retreated. At 5-6 the Austrian found herself 0-40 facing three match points but conjured two remarkable backhand winners and a forehand error from her opponent to reach deuce.
In taking the next two points and the game she appeared to gird herself mentally and it was no surprise that she raced into a 4-1 lead in the tie-break. Tantalisingly close Schwartz suddenly became defensive and it was her errors that allowed Williams to win four points in succession. The Austrian had set points at 6-5 and 7-6 before taking the tie-break 9-7.
Williams, a winner of the Hamburg and Italian Open titles, was under pressure for the first time in the tournament and it showed as Schwartz raced into a 3-1 lead in the final set. Again the Austrian lacked the belief that she was physically capable of outplaying the American and allowed Williams level the match at 3-3. To her credit the Austrian, who had to play three qualifying matches to make the main draw, then produced her best tennis of the match, winning the next three games and conceding just seven points.
Sylvia Plischke completed an unprecedented day of success for Austria by clearing yet another hurdle from Hingis's way with a 63 7-6 upset win over fourth seed and reigning Wimbledon champion Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic. The victory gave Austria two women in the final eight of the French Open for the first time.
