Fed up with the World Cup wags? The glamour girls are back at Wimbledon
FORGET Brazil and turn your thoughts to Wimbledon...
Any flickering hopes of England surviving in the World Cup were extinguished last night.
Italy l ost to Costa Rica, thereby snuffing out the slim mathematical chance Roy Hodgson’s side could still go through despite their defeats by Italy and Uruguay.
But with Wimbledon starting on Monday, here’s a sight that might just lift fans’ gloom a little – the world’s top women tennis players attending a glamorous party in London.
And one player admitted that the fashion stakes are just as high on the court as they are on the red carpet. Caroline Wozni- acki, 23, whose golfer fiance Rory McIlroy called off their wedding last month, said: ‘Everyone is looking at everyone’s outfits and comparing them.
‘I think if you feel pretty on court, you have one fewer thing to think about and you can just focus on trying to win the match.’ Certainly all the ladies made a special effort for the Women’s Tennis Association pre-Wimbledon Party at the Kensington Roof Gardens in West London on Thursday evening.
They included Maria Sharapova, who wore an eye-catching sheer and white crocodile skin mini dress and t owering strappy tan heels. The 27-yearold is ranked fifth in the world.
Number one in the rankings is Serena Williams, 32, who chose a layered white coat with black buttons, while sister Venus, 34, who is ranked 30th, wore a skintight teal-coloured sequin dress.
Belarus player Victoria Azarenka, 24, who is eighth in the world, arrived in a striking black and white dress.
Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova, 24, who is tenth, wore a sequin and sheer dress worthy of Strictly Come Dancing, while Polish player Agnieszka Rad- wanska, 24, ranked fourth, wore a daring orange leather dress.
Serbian player Jelena Jankovic, 29, who is seventh in the world, chose a more conservative option and covered up in a burgundy floor-length lace gown. In a recent interview, Serena Williams took credit for bringing fashion to the forefront of women’s tennis.
‘ We changed t ennis. We brought passion and fashion, wearing extravagant clothes,’ she said. I remember in particular Venus started wearing all these amazing outfits and I was so influenced by that. I definitely think we had a huge impact on tennis in that way.’
The attention to fashion was apparent in March when, during a tense match between Sharapova and Julia Goerges in California, Serena tweeted that she was ‘loving’ Sharapova’s outfit, adding ‘#supercute’.
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