Irresistible Sporting Beauties #619: Nadia Range'rova

It's not surprising that Serena Williams can only be bothered playing once a year. Were she to feature more regularly on the women's tennis circuit, she would necessarily be competing for photographic attention with this stunningly elegant athlete.



Say hello to Nadia Range'rova, that dainty Russian seductress well-known to readers of this site, pictured above just prior to excreting the turd of her life. It's almost time for Nadia to commence her annual performance of winning a few claycourt tournaments before losing 6-2, 6-2 in the semis of the French Open. It's like clockwork, except when she loses even earlier. This inconsistency is mostly due to the fact she is yet to discover how to make contact with the furry balls in the same way she does her own.

Funnily enough, Nadia purports to be something of a lipstick fiend. Check this out, from her WTA Tour profile:



I particularly love the vaseline gloss around the edges. Methinks the vaseline gets a regular guernsey chez Nadia.

Tennis Goes Into Ova-Time

Like fallopian tubes in perpetual ovulation, the world tennis stage is veritably saturated with -ova.

Egged on by a chance at fame and fortune, young female tennis players with surnames ending in -ova are now ubiquitous; 14 alone can be found in the Top 100. Most of them hail from Russia, but occasionally these bitches also claim to be from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belarus and even, implausibly, Israel.

To what do we owe this proliferation of saucy, racquet-wielding wenches?



Clearly the first, and best, of this maniacally vowel-obsessed set was Martina Navratilova, the winner of 9 Wimbledon singles crowns and in many ways the sport's greatest ever trend-setter.


Now, now Martina. No need to get dirty

It's true, she put forearm veins on the map. But she is most importantly responsible for infusing the previously dainty, elegant women's sport with a new and elite athletic dimension. The proliferation of tournaments now played on carpet may be her additional legacy.

It's safe to say that many of the current -ova set absolutely adore carpet.


Right back up at ya, Martina

Nadia Petrova and Svetlana Kuznetsova, pictured above, don't let being built like a convoy of Linfox trucks stand in their way of a good time.

However, neither of these women can hit winners to save themselves and were both accordingly bundled out of this year's Australian Open.

Instead, 2 marginally more photogenic -ova are still in the running. Their results suggest that in women's tennis, oestrogen is far from ova.



The first, Maria Sharapova, is the planet's most lucratively endorsed female athlete, and for good reason. They say sports marketing is all about sex - well, Maz has got the bedroom eyes down pat, imbues her game with a primal, sexual thrust by grunting like a mounted wildebeest on court, and has clearly rid herself of her gag reflex.



It's a pity that she has one of the most annoying girly laughs of all time. She also doesn't offer much by way of a decent play on words arising from her name. For this we must look to Olga Pouchkova, who sounds like something your grandma would knit for your pet kangaroo. Or perhaps the simple and effective Anna Smashnova (who for a time was additionally menacing as Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi).

Enter the other, Nicole Vaidisova.



Nicole Vaidisova, or N.Vaidisova for pun-tastic purposes. Such a sweet looking girl! And a very good player. I know you join me in wishing she would invite us over!


"That was fucking lame"

It assuredly was! As assured as N.Vaidisova's upcoming semi-final loss. Her opponent? Serena Williams.



Oops - guess I jumped the gun on the whole oestrogen thing.

Meanwhile, Sharapova will be playing a fellow Russian in her quarter-final - Anna Chakvetadaatdaatetavetadzedtze, notable for owning a 36-syllable name that incredibly ends in a vowel other than -a. Is that even legal



Anna is in good form, winning a tournament in Hobart the week before the Open (pictured above with the worst trophy known to mankind). It will be an interesting match-up.

Thanks to all of these characters, women's tennis is getting interesting again. With Serena and Hingis back on song, we just need Venus and nymphomaniac Jennifer Capriati to truly take it to the Bitches of the Eastern Bloc.

It on!

Lobbing In At The US Open

It is again time to pay a visit to our gorgeous, graceful and elegant friends over on the women's tennis tour.


"Surely that's not sarcasm"

Not at all, you saucy minx. But yourself aside, it's surely impossible to ignore, and indeed amusing to acknowledge, that there is a clear preponderance of less-than-svelte tennis machines being pumped out of the success factory that calls itself eastern Europe.

But it's not all doom and gloom for lovers of superficial assessments. The tour's relentless East German swimmers' tribute is somewhat tempered by the lovely Ana Ivanovic:


"Shall I show you my deep end"

Although a tad overdressed for a spot of swimming, Ana is otherwise a smouldering vixen in this stunning shot, easily distracting us from the surrounding practical disadvantages of water restrictions. She doesn't scrub up half bad while on court either:



At an Amazonian 6'2", blessed with the naturally silken complexion of a future Neutrogena pin-up and exuding the kind of faintly erotic aloofness so typical of Eastern bloc beauties, Ana - from Serbia and a finalist at this year's French Open - is the most effortlessly radiant of anyone currently wielding a tennis racket.


"Were you quite thorough in arriving at that conclusion"

Word.

Elsewhere, it's a bumper week for the ladies: the US Open is in its final stages, and the women have once again proven, both on court and off, why they are infinitely more interesting than their male counterparts.


Nadia Petrova gets ready to unveil her flushing meadow

Firstly, yet more appallingly sour grapes from Serena Williams Vushe, who served up quite the press conference after losing yet again to Justine Henin in the quarter-finals. The Serena-Henin QF is the mid-00s version of the perennial Serena-Capriati QF at the turn of the decade: It was their third consecutive meeting in the round of 8 of a grand slam, and the third consecutive loss for the Australian Idol finalist. That decision to fly back for the Wild Card show is looking a little reckless in hindsight, no?


"Bitch, please"

With sparkling arrogance, Serena has incurred the wrath of the media for an inelegant and unsportsmanlike conference following the loss, in which she described Henin's brilliant play in the following manner:

"I just think she made a lot of lucky shots and I made a lot of errors.... I really don't feel like talking about it. It's like I don't want to get fined. That's the only reason I came. I can't afford to pay the fines because I keep losing."


Poor baby

The conference itself is worth a closer look. A snippet from the transcript:

Q. Can you explain what went wrong out there tonight?
SERENA WILLIAMS: No, I can't. I'm sorry. Any more questions?

Q. Do you think fitness was an issue in this match?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I'm very fit. I can run for hours.

Q. Are you saying that you lost the match rather than Justine won it?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I think that's usually the case with me, that it's for me to win or lose.

S2BC adores a proper bitch: Let's hope Serena continues in that vein.

Meanwhile, her sister Venus won a 3rd set tiebreak over Jelena "Weird Al" Jankovic earlier today, restoring some class to the Williams family in a display of warm fuzzies after the win. Both girls congratulated each other, Venus labelling her opponent "incredible". Awww. It was a thrilling match of night play, eclipsing the subsequent and methodical despatch of Andy Roddick by the Fed Express.

Women's tennis is definitely where it's at. And it seems set to continue tomorrow night, in a scheduled night match sure to be beamed live via satellite into every bar across both Leichardt and Northcote:



Treasured S2BC reader Woodsman, of the brilliant but all-too-infrequently updated Billable Units, wonders whether the intensity of that particular match-up might be heightened by simply deciding the match via a "lick off". This doesn't sound altogether unappealing, now does it readers? Perhaps Mary Cheney could even be enlisted for the presentation ceremony, awarding the winner their trophy.


Or something similar

Perhaps the most bizarre development on the women's tour is the advent of Bethanie Mattek. Bethanie is a terrible player who hasn't hit a winner since the late 90s, but she sensibly computed early in her career that the only way she would ever attract attention in this line of work was through fashion. She certainly has a history of wearing outrageous outfits on court, but I didn't quite realise the extent of her madness until I read this today on the US Open website:

"Known for her outlandish outfits -- she was fined here in 2005 for wearing an argyle cowboy hat -- Mattek made an eye-popping exit: leopard headband, low-cut leopard top and those leopard shorts."

Fuck the leopard print - A COWBOY HAT?

My curiosity piqued, I reprioritised my entire life setting aside such pesky nonsense as "Urgent Meetings" to ensure that I could obtain photographic evidence of this spectacular event. You are the beneficiaries of that research, dear readers:



Sheer brilliance. And she was fined! God bless this woman.

For the record, this would have to be her pièce de résistance:



That's right: that would be a split-sleeve beige number with a crotcheted waist, complete with a lace headband and knee-high lace bow-tie socks. The overall effect is something you might get if you bumped into Tonya Harding at a toga party and pushed her through a paper shredder. In other words: I LOVE IT.

Here is a taste of her other fashion statements, among them a metallic Wonder Woman tribute outfit, the Florida retiree leopard print from this year's Open, and a soccer-themed Wimbledon effort, right down to the socks.




What's not to love about women's tennis?