Love, Ashley

Tennis champ Ashley Harkleroad

is smashing

The news out of the French Open in May wasn't all bad for Ashley Harkleroad. Although America's fourth-ranked female player was eliminated by Serena Wil­liams, she still dominated the news when the story leaked that she had become the first professional tennis player to pose for playboy.

The blonde, blue-eyed Ashley is five-foot-five, petite and possessed of a sweetness acquired while growing up in small­town Georgia. "I'm just a normal girl," she says with a gentle shrug and the slightest of drawls. Wearing stretchy workout gear, she sips an energy drink at the juice bar of her fitness club, near her house on the beach in Malibu. "Other girls on the tour have arms like tree trunks. But I'm just me."

To which we say, "Advantage Harkleroad." Ever since Ashley showed up at the 2001 U.S. Open at the age of 16, with a long ponytail and a midriff-baring two-piece Nike outfit, the media have likened her to an American Anna Kournikova. But Ashley, now 23, is her own woman. "People put expectations on me because of how I look," she says, "but you can't think about what people say. You just have to do your thing."

And that's working just fine. Earlier this year Ashley swept two key matches against Germany at the Fed Cup, then beat a top-15 competitor to close in on her goal of reaching the top 25 in the world (at press time she ranked 61st). "People took inter­est in Ashley at first because she's so good-looking and dresses sharp, and they called her a (text concluded on page 137)

ASHLEY

{continued from page 102) darling," says trainer Nick Bollettieri, who is credited with developing Andre Agassi and Monica Seles. "But cute gets you only so far. Ashley's a son-of-a-bitch tenacious competitor who's racking up victories. The woman is a powerhouse.'

Then again, she'll tell you she just likes the game. "I grew up playing tennis for the fun of it," says Ashley, who came of age in tiny Flintstone, Georgia, where her nickname, naturally, was Pebbles. Though she was a precocious athlete, her big break came when her grandfa­ther sent her to a tennis academy. "It was a big deal, at 11 or 12, to suddenly be practicing with the likes of Jennifer

Capriati. I mean, I had a poster of Jen­nifer on my wall. and here I was hit­ting with her."

Soon Ashley be­came a poster girl herself. Alter her victories in presti­gious juniors tour-n a in e n t s , Nike signed her to a lu­crative contract, and the courtside pa­parazzi perked up. "I played at Wim­bledon and saw pic­tures that showed my butt for three days in a row in the paper." she says.

Ashley rolls her eyes when saying this, but she cer­tainly understands why there's so much fuss. "Of all athletes, women tennis play­ers are the sexiest," she says. "When you play so much, you can't help but get a great body. Every­thing's toned. Your legs look great, your ass is tight, and you show it all off be­cause you can't wear

too much when you're playing."

All that translates into performing bet­ter off the court as well. "I do think ath­letes have better sex,' she asserts with a bashful giggle. "Who wants a waily girl with no definition to her body? 1 like that I have some power and that everything's tight." Also, she notes, exercise increases stamina: "So when you're doing, you know, other things, you can just keep going and going."

Ashley clasps her hands over her mouth at this admission; after all, she grew up singing in church and once got a Jesus-fish tattoo. But there's no conflict. "Pos­ing in i'i..WH(>\ is a big deal to me," she says. "I still believe in Clod, but Clod made female athletes beautiful and sexy, and I want to represent that."

She has certainly needed faith at times in her career. A few years ago the pressure of playing professionally started to get to her. "I was rising up the ladder, and I just wasn't enjoying any of it."

Part of the problem was that Ashley's natural sense of competition had esca­lated into a fierce battle with herself. "I became completely fixated on practicing and exercising and worrying about every­thing 1 ate," she says. "I was so afraid to gain weight, I'd go into major competi­tions having drunk nothing but water. I knew I had to stop."

At 19 she entered a treatment program for her addictions to overtraining and counting calories. "I needed to get right again," she says. "It doesn't matter how many tournaments you win if you aren't

happy with who you are."

The time away from the game helped Ashley clarify her priorities, and she has never been happier. "The decision to do playboy came from this newfound pride in my body and in my strength as an athlete," she says. "I feel sexy in my skin now."

Talking with Ashley, we realize why female tennis players draw so much attention. She's charming, laughs eas­ily and is definitely a people pleaser, as when she gives up the goods about what really goes on in the women's locker room. "Tennis players don't mind show­ing off their bodies," she says. "Often in the locker room I feel other girls' eyes on me. If I'm feeling fit, that can be intimidating to my competition. It means I'll be really quick out there."

Among her rivals, Ashley singles out Argentina's Gisela Dulko and Russia's Maria Kirilenko as the top homes. "There are a lot of beautiful girls on the tour. I'm just one among many."

That said, Ashley was never particu­larly comfortable being compared to Kournikova. Part of it may be personal. Ashley's ex-husband, Alex Bogo-molovjr., was a top-100 tennis pro born in Russia. "He and Anna were friends," Ashley says. "They called each other cousin even though they weren't related. He lived in her guesthouse for a while, and we would eat with her. ' Were Ashley and Anna friends? "I'm try­ing to be nice," Ashley says delicately. "Anna is stunning to look at, but she's probably a bit damaged from what

she's been through. That's how she acts— a bit damaged."

But another kind of damage really gets Ashley fired up, the kind caused by steroids and hu­man growth hor­mone. "It's out there, definitely," says Ashley, who claims she has never been tempted to use an artificial boost. "If you look at some of these girls and then look at their parents, you can see something's fishy.

When not play­ing or practicing, Ashley's a home­body. You'll oflen find her near her house, running on the sand or toss­ing around a foot­ball with friends. But she occasion­ally glams up for a night on the town. "Coming to L.A. was an eye-opener," she says. "You see beautiful women in beautiful cars, and it makes vou a little

competitive. But I love it. I can't imagine being anywhere else right now. '

Then, with the flash of a grin, the small-town girl from Klintstone comes back into view. "I grew up in a place with one stoplight, but now look at me," she says in genuine amazement at the turns her life has taken. "I'm still true to my upbringing, but I'm so grateful to get this chance to show myself as a woman, as an athlete, as someone who has struggled to overcome things. I'm really happy right now."

Now she has given herself a chance to build on that happiness. As Ashley climbs the ladder, we'll be right behind her, cheering her on.