Sure, you’ve gawked at Anna Kournikova: the blond hair so long, the skirts so short. But, come on, aren’t you ready for some new sex symbols in tennis especially now that the reigning court vixen has dropped out of this week’s U.S. Open?
Well, here’s some encouraging news: A bevy of dazzling, hot young players is ready to emerge from Kournikova’s sultry shadow, and some aren’t too bad with the racket, either.
One of them could even top Anna by doing what the mini-skirted marvel has never done: win a major tournament.
A look at the draw for this year’s U.S. Open, which starts Monday and runs until Sept. 9, gives fans a reason to hope. There are some real hotties and hunks out there who just may have the talent to take the tournament.
One of these, Allison Bradshaw, 20, looks to need a few more years of seasoning before she’ll have a chance to reach the final rounds.
But with overpowering ground strokes, a taste for punk rock and a cute smile, Bradshaw is sure to win new admirers.
On the men’s side, Fort Greene native Levar Harper-Griffith, 19, should be a huge sentimental favorite.
As a boy, he played on public tennis courts in New York City at Lincoln, Prospect and Central parks, and he attended his first U.S. Open when he was only 2 days old!
His mother, a huge tennis fan, didn’t want to miss a tournament that featured John McEnroe. That’s cute.
Last year, McEnroe invited Harper-Griffith to be on the practice squad for the U.S. Davis Cup team’s trip to Zimbabwe. This year, the United States Tennis Association granted Harper-Griffith a wild-card entry into the tournament.
Bradshaw and Harper-Griffith aren’t the only new names, however.
On the women’s side, there’s a dimply Australian with a ferocious forehand, Bryanne Stewart, 21; a lefty from Gerogia, Ansley Cargill, 19, who enjoys creative writing and confounding opponents with a nasty serve; a Russian Olympian, Anastasia Myskina, 20, who likes roses, Japanese food and the movie “Keeping the Faith”; and a brainy French woman, Nathalie Dechy, who graduated high school two years early and specializes in upsetting top-10 players.
In the men’s draw, look out for tall, dark and fast Taylor Dent. In fact, he may be too hot to handle. This dashing 20-year-old set a record in 2001 for the fastest serve ever at Wimbledon: 144 miles per hour.
But perhaps you prefer a brainier gent? Then check out Harvard University hunk James Blake, 21, who was born in Yonkers and raised in Fairfield, Conn. Or if you’re into Latin hunks, you’ll love late-blooming Hugo Armando, 23, a Miami-born ace with a victory over Yevgeny Kafelnikov this year.
Flushing Meadows will be swimming in fresh faces, a few of whom have legitimate shots at winning the whole thing this year.
Tops on that list has to be hard-hitting heartthrob Andy Roddick, 18, and barnstorming Belgians Kim Clijsters, 18, and Justine Henin, 19.
Already this year, Roddick has beaten Pete Sampras and Michael Chang. After Andre Agassi voiced worry that Roddick seemed too prone to falls and injuries, Roddick offered the polite explanation that he’s grown an inch and a half in the last year.
When he stops growing, he’ll be more sure on his feet.
As a boy, Roddick once told his mother that he was sick of wearing underwear and wouldn’t do it anymore. She suggested Speedos instead. Who knows what he’s wearing now?
It could be $100 bills. Roddick’s won more than $500,000 in prize money this year and has been ranked as high as 18th in the world in singles.
Clijsters is no slouch, either. She lost a memorable French Open final to a former teen tennis idol, Jennifer Capriati. And she’s been dating Aussie racquet ace Lleyton Hewitt, who, by the way, is a hot young gun to watch.
But no story is as compelling as Harper-Griffith’s.
Kids in his Brooklyn neighborhood once teasingly called him “Arthur Ashe,” and he would string up his own nets at city courts after vandals tore down the existing equipment.
Sometimes he’d sneak into the courts at the U.S. Open with the help of friends who worked there. This year, he’s playing in the main draw.
The award for the sassiest player goes to San Diego-born Bradshaw, whose mother, Valerie Ziegenfuss, was a founder of the Women’s Tennis Association tour in 1970 and a two-time Wimbledon doubles semifinalist.
Asked by a CBS interviewer what the strongest part of her game was, Bradshaw gave this no-nonsense answer: “I like overpowering people and trying to outsmart them at the same time.”
Blake is another collegiate standout, who went from playing in the Harlem Junior Tennis League to playing for Harvard as an adult.
Now, he’s on a mission to prove that his generation of players Roddick, Dent, Harper-Griffith and Mardy Fish is as great as the previous one.
“I think we are the next group of Americans after Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Martin,” he told Sports Illustrated.
This new generation knows how to enjoy its success.
After Stewart made it to the third round of the Australian Open last year and was assured of receiving at least $14,000 in prize money, she and her fellow Aussie tennis hotshot Alicia Molik were spotted at a fashionable shopping strip unloading some of their winnings.
She also put Down Under scribes in a froth when she showed up at her matches in Adelaide this year wearing a skirt with built-in shorts and extra elastic to store tennis balls.
Dent, who drives a VW Golf (they don’t make a VW Tennis), despite $250,000 in career earnings, seems to care a bit less about style.
The fastest riser of the group may be Atlanta-born Ansley Cargill, who turned pro this summer after completing her freshman year at Duke. And youngest male star on horizon is one we won’t see for awhile probably not until 2018.
That’s when we could witness the U.S. Open debut of perhaps the greatest child prodigy of them all. He doesn’t have a name yet or even a birth certificate, but what lineage!
He’s the unborn son of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, who are expecting in December.