Word: davenport
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...drama to go around. Besides the marked Williams sisters, there's No. 1-ranked Martina Hingis, who has morphed from the adorable Swiss miss into the tour's trash-talking queen; Jennifer Capriati, the seemingly washed-up teen prodigy turned fitness monster and this year's dominant player; Lindsay Davenport, a California redwood, who squeezed her high school prom in around the tour and now fires shots at the other players from the safety of her elder-stateswomanship; Monica Seles, the once champion, who was knifed in the back by a lunatic eight years ago and is now playing with...
Martina Navratilova, a lesbian who has fought her own discrimination battles, agrees. "I think they've been treated with kid gloves," she says, citing a display by Richard Williams after Venus beat Davenport at last year's U.S. Open final. "If Mr. Williams had been white and done that victory dance in front of Lindsay Davenport, he would have been reprimanded much more. People have been afraid to criticize them because they don't want to be called racist...
...These players for the most part don't get along. That's what makes it so interesting," says third-ranked Davenport, 25, the 1998 Open winner. And she's right. Try to get the women to pose for a magazine cover en masse and you wonder how VH1 pulls off that diva show every year. "Serena is a lot more friendly than Venus, but Martina [Hingis] is not talking to either of them," said Davenport in May, before Hingis and the Williamses reached a detente. "Anna and Martina were both going for the same market, and that didn't work...
...recent USA Today poll showed that 75% of tennis fans prefer the women's game. Its TV ratings are routinely higher than the men's. Forbes Celebrity 100 list, which tabulates fame in America, includes five women's tennis players: Kournikova, No. 54; Venus, 57; Hingis, 65; Serena, 71; Davenport, 72. No other sport, male or female, has as many on the list. Non-tennis fans know Hingis, Kournikova, the Williamses, Capriati, Seles and maybe Davenport. The No. 1-rated male player is named Gustavo Kuerten. Seriously...
...instead teaming up with a Canadian software company named Corel. For U.S. tournaments, it went with lucy.com which has folded. After another sponsorless year, the WTA finally signed with Sanex, which is some kind of European soap. "Places were selling out, and they still couldn't get a sponsor," Davenport says. "Players were getting fed up. As far as a leader of women's tennis, they've totally failed us. Nobody has helped us get there except the players. The success is pure luck...