At the pre-Wimbledon players’ party this year, many of the stars of women’s tennis turned out in style.

Gone for the night were the tank tops, shorts and sunscreen that are the daily uniform of these professional athletes, replaced by fetching outfits and diamonds that sparkled amid the media spotlight.

In the one-name-only ranks of the game’s best, Serena and Venus looked stunning, Ana was her usual becoming self and Jelena was putting her best face forward. Towering above them all in the prettiness stakes, however, was Maria, the sultry stunner from Siberia who not only scrubs up great but also has three Grand Slam titles to her name.

Sharapova, who is regularly photographed in magazine fashion spreads and wore Tiffany earrings during her French Open run as part of her contract with the luxury jeweler, appears to be the natural-born successor to her compatriot Anna Kournikova. Of course, the love affair with the so-called babes of the game didn’t start with Anna’s appeal. Before God created Kournikova, the blonde bombshell-cum-mega marketing phenomenon from Russia, other tennis players also knew that they could parlay good looks to win the allegiance of fans and land lucrative endorsements.

But Kournikova was fortunate to come of age as the World Wide Web spread across the globe, allowing her sultry image to be peered at and pored over for hours at a time by the serially besotted. She took the marriage of sport and sex appeal to a whole new money-making level.

Now in her mid-20s and linked to Latin pop heartthrob Enrique Iglesias, Kournikova is pretty much done with swiping a ball about in pursuit of an elusive singles title. She can happily turn a deaf ear to cynics who mock her talent – the truth is she was a gifted player whose career was sidelined by injury – and content herself with playing the occasional exhibition match while living off her millions from lucrative endorsement contracts.

Her mantle of comely queen of the court has passed to Sharapova and, more recently, Serbian Ana Ivanovic who, thanks to being blessed with a better visage than the average Lindsay, Jelena and Amelie, can sell everything from cameras, perfume and luxury watches to automobiles and, of course, the mobile phones of women’s tour sponsor Sony Ericsson, for endorsements worth an estimated US$10 million annually.

Those extra earnings help out in lean times on court. Sharapova has been plagued by a potentially career-ending right shoulder injury that kept her out of the game for most of last year (she lost in the second round of Wimbledon in June). Ivanovic, who along with Slovak Daniela Hantuchova, was used in the Sony Ericsson print and TV ad campaign, has been dealt the harsh, and perhaps premature, label of a one-slam wonder following dismal results in 2009.

Of course, they should reap the rewards of their gene coup while they can, for there are others snapping at their well-heeled shoes as the next advertiser’s dream. Dutch junior Arantxa Rus has already been touted as the next Maria.

The forerunner of today’s advertising goddesses was the famously stylish, notoriously temperamental French star Suzanne Lenglen in the 1920s. She was not a looker in the conventional sense – in photos, she has a prominent, hooked nose – but she gained a following through her diva-like persona. Known to take a swig of brandy at crucial moments in matches, wear fur coats onto court and carry her pet dog around with her (no, Paris, you weren’t the first), six-time Wimbledon winner Lenglen was the game’s first true star.

Lenglen’s feats were broadcast to the public in the newsreels played at movie theaters.

“Lenglen became the greatest draw card tennis had known, and she was one of those who made it a major box office attraction,” tennis commentator and historian Bud Collins wrote in his Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis.

There is the inevitable element of sex appeal in any sport, and each generation of tennis players has had at least one or two individuals renowned for their good looks (on the male side, in the 1930s, Brooke Shields’ handsome paternal grandfather, Frank, reached the Wimbledon men’s final).

But other champions who followed Lenglen – from the beautiful but publicity-shy Helen Wills Moody in the 1930s, Maureen “Little Mo” Connolly in the 1950s, elegant Brazilian Maria Bueno in the 1960s and gutsy Billie Jean King and athletic Margaret Court in the 1970s – remained mainly as sports stars in the public mind.

Tennis was an amateur sport until 1968, so the use of player images was mainly restricted to tennis-related products endorsed by a player’s national federation. A search of tennis memorabilia websites shows that players were also featured on trading and cigarette cards, as well as in occasional product endorsements, such as cookies and soft drinks.

“There were women on the tour known for their good looks, like Kristine Kemmer, Maria Bueno and Helga Schulz and Helga Nielsen, but there weren’t any who were doing modeling on the side like today,” Lita Liem Sugiarto, who played on the tour in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, told me in an interview several years ago.

The Indonesian was one of the select women’s players dressed by flamboyant designer Ted Tinling – “I was the only ugly one. He said it was because I was unusual as an ambidextrous player” – who would unfurl a line of new dresses at each Wimbledon.

She said the focus remained on results back then.

“There was always the fear that your concentration would be divided if you did other things.”

And then pretty, wholesome, all-American Chris Evert came along to shake things up.

As with Kournikova stooping to conquer in the age of the Internet, the 16-year-old Evert emerged at just the right time in 1972, as the women, tired of taking half or less of the prize money of men at joint tournaments, established their own professional tour and TV took notice.

“Evert showed that a traditionally feminine woman could be a sports champion,” Johnette Howard wrote in 2005’s The Rivals. “She made people comfortable ... As she grew older, she was the first female player of the Open era to put sexual fizz into the office of the World’s Greatest Tennis Player – granted, in a wholesome, Grace Kelly way.”

Howard says Evert was a pioneer in making the crossover from sports pinup to a celebrity who advertisers embraced as suitable to endorse more than tennis-related products. The Floridian was feted for her looks at a time when the feminist movement was making inroads in the US and Europe.

The shrewd King, who had beaten Bobby Riggs in the landmark “Battle of the Sexes” in Houston, quickly realized that Evert would be a draw for the fledgling women’s tour, a contrast to Court and her own feisty court persona.

Sportswriters, Howard notes, would comment on matters unrelated to Evert’s tennis game, such as her pink fingernails, streaked blond hair and that she “‘perched prettily’ atop her courtside chair”. She also helped solidify her thoroughly feminine image with a string of famous boyfriends and her oft-quoted remark that she would never fall over in the pursuit of a tennis ball.

With Martina Navratilova and King given the advertising cold shoulder after details of same-sex relationships came out, Evert cleaned up on Madison Avenue. She compiled nearly $9 million in career earnings, but is estimated to have received three to four times that amount in endorsements.

Even after her retirement in 1989 (and a third marriage to the golf great Greg Norman), Evert remains a highly sought-after motivational speaker and also an ad pitchwoman. Navratilova, despite dominating the game for almost a decade in the 1980s, made very few endorsement deals, even ones that were sports related.

Taking Evert’s place was Argentine Gabriela Sabatini, whose Latin looks made her a hit with companies around the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1994, at the tail end of her career, she earned $900,000 in prize money plus $4 million in endorsements (her signature perfumes still lead several European markets).

And so it goes. The fairest of them all grab the lion’s share of endorsement contracts; despite the presence of brunette Sabatini and today Ivanovic (an almost dead ringer for the 1950s Hollywood actress Ava Gardner), it seems, blonds are still having more fun with advertising dollars. The Williams sisters, even with their remarkable achievements on court and the way their game has revolutionized tennis, are seldom used in advertising, indicating the covert racism that continues to persist.

Hantuchova, the willowy blonde from Slovakia, won the Indian Wells title at the age of 16, but found the pressure of the tour intense at times. She suffered a slump in form in 2003, crying during a shock loss to Japanese player Shinobu Asagoe at Wimbledon, amid a rumored eating disorder (despite looking extremely thin, Hantuchova denied being anorexic).  

She overcame her problems and, despite failing to fulfill the expectations of many tennis observers, she is at 26 still one of the biggest tournament draws. She is beautiful and, at 1.81 meters tall, looks great modeling designer clothes, whether in pre-tournament fashion shows like the one held at the Commonwealth Bank Tennis Classic each year or in magazine photo spreads. She is also educated (she was a concert pianist until the age of 12) and articulate, and understands the nature of the industry of tennis today.

“It’s all part of the business,” she told me with a shrug when asked about the demands of interviews, photo ops and sponsor engagements.

But not all the women players seek the fame and fortune that can come from selling their image. In the early 1980s, tennis’ glamour girls included “Darling Carling” Bassett, a blonde brewery heiress from Canada (she was later to suffer from anorexia and other eating disorders), and Hungary’s Andrea Temesvari, who was famous for wearing full makeup onto court.

And there was also another talented player who was pretty enough to gain a following. Her looks had already brought her success playing in Japan, always a receptive market for attractive young women players; she was ranked in the top 10 and had reached a major semifinal.

Except she did not want to be the center of attention. For her, being idolized for her looks – how others perceived her to be simply from her appearance – was a curse, and rising further in the rankings would only heighten her discomfort.

The player, who now resides in the US, is fiercely guarded about discussing her career. But today, 20 years since she retired due to injury, she says by email that she is glad she does not have to deal with the pressure and responsibilities that the game’s young stars face.

“I just wanted to go out there and play, I really couldn’t deal with everybody looking at me,” she says. “It got worse as my career went on. I really believe I was too sensitive to deal with it [the attention].”

Time and looking at the circuit from afar have helped give her a new perspective on tennis.

“It’s just a game,” she says. “People in tennis are so big on themselves, so I try to stay away from the tour. Even Roger Federer, he’s a great player and a nice guy, but he is just a tennis player. The real heroes are the people who do things for others, like the ambulance workers assisting people at accidents.”  

For her, the price of fame and celebrity, even if it came with a bulging bank balance, was too much to pay.

Read more about the world of sports in the August WEEKENDER, out Friday.

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