Red carpet for Sharapova

Chris Yemma

By the time 7 p.m. rolls around tonight, Palisades Tennis Club will

be packed to maximum capacity.

The draw?

Maria Sharapova, female tennis beauty and phenom, will be playing

her lone match of the season for the Newport Beach Breakers tonight

against visiting St. Louis.

Approximately 1,550 tickets were sold by Thursday, Breakers’

Ticket Sales Manager Scott Gwartz said, while the remaining available

slots are expected to be snatched up when individual tickets go on

sale at 2 p.m. today.

Palisades capacity is 1,600, and with music blaring in between

points and during breaks, tonight’s World Team Tennis contest will be

unlike any ordinary tennis match.

“I think it will be the strongest atmosphere -- with the most

energy and most anticipation -- for a number of reasons,” Breakers’

General Manager Jim Haley said. “One being that Maria is probably the

hottest thing as far as women’s tennis right now.

“Secondly, Maria playing just one match creates more

anticipation....[Tonight] is going to be a big night.”

Sharapova, 2004 Wimbledon champion and current No. 2-ranked woman

in the world, is expected to at least draw a sellout crowd. The

Breakers are also thinking about adding a couple of hundred more

seats, Haley said.

Haley added he is expecting the match to draw more attention than

the July 7 contest against visiting Sacramento, featuring Anna

Kournikova.

Aside from the female stars grabbing the spotlight, however, the

team itself is in contention to make the playoffs, currently sitting

a half-match back of second in the Western Conference and one match

behind first-place Sacramento.

The defending WTT champion Breakers have an 8-4 record,

considerably due Ramon Delgado, the league’s No. 1 men’s singles

player.

Delgado has lost just one set this season and is 55-30 in games.

But tonight, it’s all about Sharapova.

“It will be electric,” Palisades owner Ken Stuart said. “They have

more security -- they could win the Iraq war with all the security.”

The 18-year-old Russia-born star has won 10 Women’s Tennis

Association Tour singles titles and recently reached the Wimbledon

women’s singles semifinals, losing to eventual-champion Venus

Williams, 7-6 (2), 6-1.

Her 2004 Wimbledon victory ended a run of four straight titles won

by the Williams sisters -- Venus in 2000 and 2001, and Serena in 2002

and 2003.

The championship also vaulted Sharapova to celebrity status: she

was recently listed by Forbes Magazine as the richest female athlete

in the world.

This WTT season marks Sharapova’s third year of participation in

the league. She played all 14 matches for the Breakers two years ago,

but only ended up playing one match last year after winning

Wimbledon.

“She’s really a delight,” Stuart said. “The thing that all of us

like is she gives 100%. It doesn’t matter if it’s team tennis or the

Wimbledon finals.”