I beat Maria Sharapova because of her outfit

Maria Sharapova remembered to pack the designer jacket and the shorts she knew would make her the centre of attention at Wimbledon. She just forgot to pack her talent. Sharapova ended yesterday all dressed up and with only one place to go – out of the tournament and back to California.
Every point seemed to inflict pain on the No 3 seed as she slid inexorably towards the Wimbledon exit yesterday. Alla Kudryavtseva did not so much defeat Sharapova, 6-2, 6-4, as pack up her posh clothes and dump them in the hotel corridor.
Not much point in being the Golden Girl with the fashionable gear that turns you into a multimillion-pound advertising hoarding if you are back at home and no one can see you. But that is what is facing Sharapova as she attempts to understand how she could lose to a 20-year-old Russian ranked No 154 in the world in the second round at Wimbledon.
Perhaps Sharapova should have been warned. After all, Kudryavtseva’s father, Alexander, was a world champion wrestler and she owns a rottweiler. When it comes to fighting spirit, Sharapova could have guessed that her opponent was up for a ruck.
But there was worse to come, for Kudryavtseva, who is not one of the glamour girls of tennis, said that Sharapova’s status as a fashion icon had got under her skin. “It’s very pleasant to beat Maria,” she said. “I don’t like her outfit. Can I put it this way? It was one of my motivations to beat her.”
My, she must have bristled when she set eyes on her. As always, Sharapova looked wonderful: trim, athletic and shrieking for Russia as she boomed the ball around the court. That was part of the problem, for Sharapova boomed the ball almost anywhere but where it was supposed to go. As the match wore on, she looked as though she was trying to shrug off the worries of the world, alternating between huge bursts of energy and tired, listless shots with the power of a powder puff.
At least she was gracious in defeat. “I guess it wasn’t my day,” Sharapova said. “She just did everything better than I did. She played much better. She had nothing to lose. She went for her shots. I was just pretty tentative. You just never know what’s going to happen on any given day. Some days the balls just don’t bounce where you want them or they don’t land where you want them to land.”
In the space of two days the two figureheads of women’s tennis have seen their reputations dangle by a thread. Ana Ivanovic, the No 1 seed from Serbia, got away with it thanks to the thickness of a net cord that saved her from defeat by Nathalie Dechy, of France. But there was no net cord to save Sharapova and, in truth, a safety net the size of Wimbledon’s No 1 Court would not have been enough to prevent her tumbling into the ranks of the also-rans for 2008.
It was a different story for Venus Williams, although the defending champion is making a rickety attempt to hold on to her crown. She was roughed up by Naomi Cavaday, the British No 5, in the first round and yesterday it was the turn of Anne Keothavong, the British No 1, to have a go. And very well Keothavong played, too. Well enough to believe that she could have won instead of being defeated 7-5, 6-2. The scoreline did not reflect Keothavong’s tenacity and mix of power and trickery that temporarily rocked the champion. Unlike Sharapova, though, Williams is still in the mix for this championship.