Power Games, Teenage Vixens, and Million-Dollar Egos on the Women's Tennis Tour.
A behind-the-scenes look at the hugely popular and often controversial world of women's tennis featuring such household names as Venus and Serena Williams and Anna Kournikova.
In 'Venus Envy', 'Sports Illustrated' investigative reporter and tennis columnist L Jon Wertheim draws back the curtain on the soap opera that is the women's professional tennis tour with its primal plotlines driven by ambition, sex and revenge.
Here are the stories behind the stories: the tragic Garbo-like star who whiles away hours in a mid-western hotel room because she's afraid to go outdoors; the teenager who tries to cope with the pressure of the big-time as well as an abusive father; the brilliant No.1 who plays out her adolescent tantrums on the public stage; the coquette who launched a thousand websites; and a little-understood African-American family who proved that they could play by their own rules and still win the game, not to mention the endorsements.
By the time Venus signed the biggest endorsement deal ever for a female athlete last December, her opponents' sentiments could be described in just two words: Venus Envy.
