A model competitor

PARIS -- Suddenly here’s Maria Sharapova, veritable supermodel, billboard babe and paparazzi magnet, only one French Open title away from a perpetual perch in the Court-King-Evert-Navratilova-Graf-Serena Williams clouds.

Win this French Open, which she begins today against fellow Russian Evgeniya Rodina, and there will be one Siberian-born Floridian joining those names with all the proof of moxie that a rare achievement bestows.

Win this particular French Open, and the reigning Australian Open champion will complete a career Grand Slam, not to mention stand halfway to a 2008 Grand Slam.

It seems a good time to remind everyone of the spectacularly unfair truth that in April, Sharapova turned 21.

“To be quite honest, it’s quite amazing to be 21 years old and have somebody tell you that it’s the only Grand Slam that you haven’t won,” Sharapova said.

The just-retired Justine Henin never could quite win Wimbledon, Martina Hingis couldn’t quite win the French, Lindsay Davenport hasn’t won the French, the great Monica Seles didn’t win Wimbledon though she very well might have had a mad idiot not stabbed her during a match in Germany in the spring of 1993. The beautifully eccentric French has denied a horde of males from Boris Becker to Stefan Edberg to Pete Sampras to John McEnroe to Jimmy Connors.

Sharapova? She can win here if her past lends any clues, both her past five years of trying and the past 12 days that featured the startling retirement of Henin, who had owned this event, winning the last three titles and four of the last five.

If Sharapova does win, it will splatter further absurdity over the fact that when she said her loud hello to the world at the 2004 Wimbledon, onlookers initially compared her to Anna Kournikova, another Russian player who spent an inordinate amount of time surrounded by photographers.

While Kournikova famously won precisely zero tournaments, Sharapova said at age 17 during the Wimbledon she won, “I never considered myself a pinup and I never will.”

Win this French, and the champion will continue to obstruct the pinup.

She claims, of course, that never winning here wouldn’t render her life misspent. She professes only vague interest in the all-four-Slams subject. “It would just -- it would add to what I’ve already achieved,” she said. “I’ve never -- I’ve never felt like I had to go out on court and prove anything else. . . .

“To be honest, it would be an incredible addition to your resume or portfolio, but you know, if it’s not this year, the career’s not ending. I’ve got many more years ahead of me to try and achieve that and try to win the other Grand Slams as well.”

It’s clear that what’s within must be sturdy stuff, perhaps counterintuitive given a person wildly famous for what’s on the surface, the world’s most-photographed sportswoman. It all makes the gut-testing open, the French, the ideal last frontier for her tennis trophy collection, which already includes the 2004 Wimbledon, the 2006 U.S. Open and this year’s Australian.

She’s certainly worthy on Parisian clay, even if she did once say it makes her feel like “a cow on ice.”

She started here in 2003, at 16, as a qualifier, and she exited quickly, 6-3, 6-3, to the Spaniard Magui Serna.

In 2004, though, she lurched to the quarterfinals just ahead of her Wimbledon title, and in 2005 she repeated that Paris feat -- she was seeded No. 2 that year -- before slamming into Henin. Dinara Safina foiled her in the fourth round in 2006, and then in 2007, Sharapova made a spectacle of herself.

In the fourth round of a women’s event starved for compelling matches, she held off Patty Schnyder, 9-7, in the third set of a match pockmarked with one of those timeout issues. At one point, Schnyder held up her hand for a pause, Sharapova continued serving an ace, the crowd eventually booed Sharapova off the court.

Sharapova came to the interview room and snidely reminded everyone that it’s “pretty hard being a tennis player and Mother Teresa at the same time, you know.”

On she went to the semifinals, where she weirdly began spraying shots all over the 16th arrondissement against first-time semifinalist Ana Ivanovic in a 6-2, 6-1 wipeout.

The insurmountable Henin would’ve waited anyway in the final, but now even that wall of preposterous cleverness has toppled, so that Sharapova finds herself ranked No. 1 and seeded No. 1, Henin having asked officials to delete her name because, she said, “I didn’t want to see myself in the ranking anymore.”

At just about the time Henin phoned the WTA with that, Sharapova had a telltale moment at the intersection of tennis and modeling. She railed at the WTA for lassoing her into a four-hour promotional photo shoot on the cusp of the Italian Open in Rome, before the sides compromised and cut it to 90 minutes.

“In the past . . . I’ve set a rule for myself that with all my sponsors and everybody that I work with, they know that I don’t give that amount of time before such big tournaments as a Tier 1 or a Grand Slam or, as a matter of fact, any other tournament,” she said. “The couple of weeks before a tournament are all committed to tennis.”

This has grown rather obvious.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

French Open

A look back at opening day of the year’s second Grand Slam event, and a look ahead to Day 2 (world rankings in parentheses):

Who won

Serena Williams (5) -- The only woman of the 128 in the draw with a French Open title trophy at home. Touting her comfort this spring on clay, she blazed through 59th-ranked fellow American Ashley Harkleroad, 6-2, 6-1, hitting 19 winners to Harkleroad’s five.

James Blake (8) -- By the time he tore through former Australian Open finalist and 90th-ranked Rainer Schuettler, 6-4, 6-1, 7-6 (3), the American men had trumped their 0-9 showing from 2007, so that Blake could crack, “We set the bar low enough that we’re over the bar by 3 on Sunday afternoon.”

Ana Ivanovic (2) -- Returned to the spot of her breakthrough to the 2007 final, played the first match of the tournament and beat Sweden’s 52nd-ranked Sofia Arvidsson, 6-2, 7-5.

Novak Djokovic (3) -- A thicker match than forecast for the Australian Open champion, but he muddled through against 64th-ranked Denis Gremelmayr of Germany, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-2.

Andy Murray (10) -- No clay maestro, the Scot trailed 390th-ranked French wild-card Jonathan Eysseric, 6-2, 1-6, 4-6, then got serious and swept the last two sets, 6-0 and 6-2.

Who lost

Gustavo Kuerten (1,141, three-time champion) -- In 108 minutes on the main court, the impossibly popular Brazilian bowed out to 19th-ranked Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, to grins from Kuerten and chants of “Guga” from the adoring crowd. So heartfelt was this first-round match that the organizers brought out a table afterward, as they would for a final match, and handed him a singular glass trophy. Kuerten held it aloft, wept a bit and addressed the crowd in broken French. Later, in broken English, he said of Roland Garros, “I live this very intense.”

Today’s matches to watch

Sam Querrey (40) -- The Thousand Oaks resident lives his very lousy draw, opposing No. 1 Roger Federer.

Venus Williams (8) -- Williams gets going against 94th-ranked Israeli Tzipora Obziler in the second match on Court Philippe Chatrier, the main court.

Amelie Mauresmo (24) -- Never a titlist or even a finalist here, the Frenchwoman starts against 79th-ranked Olga Savchuk of Ukraine.

-- Chuck Culpepper