If men are from Mars and women from Venus, then tennis is one place where Venus is having her way (and I'm not just talking about Williams).
Searches for tennis players went up significantly last week with the arrival of the Australian Open. A peek at tennis searches shows just how dominant women's tennis is online.
Here are the eight quarterfinalists at the Australian Open, ranked by Lycos searches last week. The percentage given is relative to Venus Williams, since Anna Kournikova is head and shoulders over everyone else:
1) Anna Kournikova (510.3%)
2) Venus Williams (100.0%)
3) Martina Hingis (84.7%)
4) Serena Williams (57.1%)
5) Amanda Coetzer (6.3%)
6) Monica Seles (6.0%)
7) Jennifer Capriati (3.4%)
8) Lindsay Davenport (3.2%)
That's not a bad performance by the Williams sisters last week. Two other tennis women who fell before the quarterfinals were highly searched: Jelena Dokic (55.3%) and Mary Pierce (19.8%).
Now let's take a look at the men. Since the men's quarterfinals were full of lower seeds, here are the top eight male tennis players of last week, regardless of how they performed in the Open:
1) Andre Agassi (16.3%)
2) Pete Sampras (11.2%)
3) Marat Safin (9.8%)
4) Patrick Rafter (8.0%)
5) Tommy Haas (6.4%)
6) Lleyton Hewitt (5.5%)
7) Gustavo Kuerten (1.9%)
8) Magnus Norman (1.6%)
Well, I think we've shown who's boss here. The top male, Agassi, comes in below six different female stars.
Why is women's tennis so much more popular? Of course, part of the answer is that female tennis players are sex symbols, led by the unstoppable Kournikova. There are many porn-related searches (which we don't count in the Lycos 50) for female players, despite the fact that such pictures probably don't exist.
But there's another reason why women's tennis is more popular: established stars that do well in tournaments. You can watch the Australian Open quarterfinals, fairly confident that two players you recognize will be competing.
On the men's side, each tournament seems to be a new hodge-podge of lesser-known figures. This year, these were the seeds in the Australian semifinals: 6, 12, 15, and 16. That lack of starpower is reflected in the fact that four of the eight quarterfinalists received no searches on Lycos last week. Until the men's tour can develop some stars, Mars will always take a back seat to Venus - and Serena.
Don't forget Lycos Sports if you want to follow either the women or the men of tennis.
