Maria Mania
The grass courts of Wimbledon haven’t been kind to American tennis players this year, but that doesn’t mean interest in the tournament has been sidelined. The top four seeds on the women’s side have all held court and advanced to the semis, but the player ranked number four on the court is overwhelmingly number one in Search.
Blond beauty Maria Sharapova is netting 50 times as many searches as nearest competitor Kim Clijsters. Sharapova’s success comes as no surprise—her leggy good looks have enchanted searchers since she won Wimbledon way back in 2004. And although she didn’t make the finals, she’s currently among our top 100 search terms, and related queries on “maria sharapova pictures” and “maria sharapova hot” have been a smash in Buzz.
Clijsters may come in a distant second to Sharapova, but she still manages to handily defeat Amelie Mauresmo and Justine Henin-Hardenne in Search, earning more than triple the queries of our third- and fourth-ranked players. Searches on Clijsters continue to rise, up 232% after she defeated Li Na to reach the semis. The other ladies who lost in the semis all experienced a farewell bump in buzz: Anastasia Myskina (+248%), Severine Bremond (+181%), and Elena Dementieva (+175%).
Oh, yeah—the men are playing too. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal created minor ripples across the net of Buzz, but nothing compared to the amount of searches served up by the women of Wimbledon.
