Making image pay

A Wimbledon crowd will never let you down. You make the prediction, they will carry it out. In arrives a pin-up cliche. It is Anna Kournikova for her first-round match against Austrian Barbara Schwartz. Up goes the volume. Wolf whistles rain down, taunting fans crank up and a battalion of camera shutters explode at six frames a second. For someone who has won nothing of note in the world tour, the 18-year-old has been turning heads here faster than a chiropractor.

Voted one of the "50 most beautiful people in the world" by People magazine in 1998, the Russian-born 16th seed can always point to the 1997 event where she reached the semi-final stages, something only former winner Chris Evert did on her debut back in 1972.

But even by the standards of Evert, Gabriela Sabatini, Steffi Graf or any top player whom the world decides is its chosen tennis beauty, Kournikova has eclipsed them all.

The sniggers that accompany the whistling is unadulterated lechery and for a moment, its intensity is disconcerting. The dress is a little more than comfortable tennis garb - tighter, shorter.

But the player herself appears unfazed having cornered the tennis sex market from the age of 15 when she started dating ice hockey star Sergei Federov, 10 years her senior.

Then the tennis world gasped at the possibility of an illegal liaison and a scandal. Unabashed, Kournikova simply turned up her nose.

The colour schemes, which were so much in evidence at the French Open, where the predominantly white rule does not apply, were designed to highlight the contours of her well-marketed body.

And of course, that's what it is all about. Eighteen or 28, Kournikova's figure galvanises the media. That pleases her clothing sponsor Adidas and the merry commercial vehicle keeps moving.

To date, Kournikova has earned over $500,000 on court. Conservative estimates of her income from off-court enterprises would multiply that figure by 10 and if she ever manages to win a Grand Slam, she will become one of the highest paid tennis players in the history of the sport.

Yesterday, the organisers sighed with relief as she advanced to the second round by beating Schwartz, who had ousted Venus Williams from Roland Garros, 7-6, 4-6, 6-2, guaranteeing further blanket coverage.

Winning match point, she smiled for the first time and shook her golden, braided hair. "Good girl" said the photographer in front. He'd been waiting for an hour and a half.