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Maria gets the moneymen thinking
"Oh my God! Oh my God! It's unreal!" With those eight words, Maria Sharapova shrieked her delight and ecstasy at creating one of the biggest shocks.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! It's unreal!" With those eight words on Saturday, Maria Sharapova shrieked her delight, disbelief and ecstasy at creating one of the biggest shocks in sporting history: becoming Wimbledon champion, aged just 17 years and 74 days.
The previously unknown teenager from Siberia sank to the ground on the baseline of Centre Court after producing a truly remarkable coup, toppling the defending champion Serena Williams 6-1, 6-4, to become the second-youngest winner in history of the ladies' singles title.
"My mum and my dad, I owe you everything. Thank you so much. Thank both you guys so much," she continued in her accent which mixes her native Russia with large amounts of Florida, where she has lived and trained since 1997.
All round the All England Club's hallowed centrepiece in London SW19, spectators joined in the applause for a young woman who sports agents and marketing experts predicted would quickly become the most marketable and highest-earning sportswoman in history. Only Martina Hingis, at 16 years and 278 days in 1997, has won the title at a younger age.
As the world looked on, however, Sharapova seemed delightfully unaware of the hullabaloo that is set to follow her triumph.
Serena Williams, who had been hoping to become the first player to complete a hat-trick of titles, looked on smiling as her opponent waved to the crowd.
The moneymen watched eagerly. "She's a marketing dream. She will be the Tiger Woods of women's tennis and could earn as much as 100 million pounds during her career, mainly from endorsements," said John Colquhoun, a football agent who handles players such as England goalkeeper David James through the Key Sports Management firm.
"If you were looking for a photofit of a commercially appealing athlete, who could generate the maximum income, she would be it because she has everything: great looks, the tennis ability and a mature, well-groomed approach to being successful that sponsors like.
"She's very similar to Woods. He has both the aesthetic appeal and the sporting ability to win many honours and also earn large sums from commercial endorsements, because he appeals to many different demographic groups, and she'll do the same.
"Just as he made groups such as young black men interested in golf, so she will appeal to a wide range of people, many of whom are not usually that interested in tennis, from teenage boys up to mothers."
Sports sponsorship consultant Ben Wells said Sharapova would plug a gap in sport. "Since Anna Kournikova's decline, women's sport worldwide has had very few recognisable iconic figures, and now it has one. Rightly or wrongly, female athletes are under pressure to look good as well as to be good at their sport in a way that male sports stars aren't, but Sharapova can probably handle that," Wells said.
Sharapova encountered only one setback. After her victory, she climbed through the crowd to reach her father. Yuri and tried using her mobile phone to call her mother, Elena, back in Florida, where she had stayed in order not to jinx the biggest day of her daughter's sporting life so far.
Despite her new-found champion status, the phone stubbornly refused to work. "She'll have mobile phone companies queuing up to sponsor her now: it would be an ideal image to show how their mobiles work," commented one agent.
