The New Bond Babe: Maria

Silliman on Sports
By Stan Silliman

THE NEW BOND BABE – MARIA

Maria Sharapova, a new Bond babe? The India Times says Maria has come under the influence of Wimbledonitis and wants to be in a James Bond movie. If so, all we can say is serve ‘em up. Bounce me over the net if it’s true. Return me with a sharp smack and stop me before a batch of repressed teenage-gushiness froths forth. And, by the way, if I’ve got repressed-teenage-gushiness, by now, at my age, you can be pretty sure it’s vinegar.

Maria thinks she would be the perfect partner for the current Bond, Daniel Craig. YES!! Because there are a few places, even on his tippy-toes, little Daniel could not reach where the 6’2” Sharapova can. For instance, what if you had to fire the weapon through the transom? It wouldn’t be very Bond-like for Craig to go looking for a milk crate when he could just hand the gun to Maria and she can whack the bad guys. That’s teamwork! Boris had Natasha who had Boris beat in the looks and height department. And while we don’t expect any of the new Bond movies to feature talking moose (meese? mooses?), Maria can definitely be helpful.

Here’s what we see. In the world’s most dangerous places, where an evil spy has dastardly planet-killing weapons, there will always be tennis tournaments. What better cover than have your co-spy a Russian tennis ace with disarming good looks and rocket-like serves? Q modifies her racquet to fire .45 caliber bullets from the handle which she activates by squeezing three fingers on the strings. An exciting scene would be at center court, final set, while the bad guy is escaping over the back of the stadium. Maria returns a groundstroke, spins the racquet around, sets it on automatic, snipes the bad guy off the top row and then backhands a return volley for a just-inside-the-backline match winner. Game, set, match, bad guy mashed on the sidewalk! James Bond rushes out to center court, jumps up so he can kiss her, plants one on her chin but still the crowd goes wild.
We can even see a song. It’s not quite James Bondish, more… uh… West Side Storyish:

I once met a girl named Maria…Maria, Maria, Maria!!
Maria Sharapova… I met her while driving… my Nova!!!
And with her back hand… she slapped me… all ova!!!
And suddenly I found… how wonderful a sound…
That racquet smacking sound…
With my bones hitting ground… can be aaaaaa!!
I can never stop saying Maria!!

“Silliman! Stop that, you’re ruining my dream.”
It’s Maria Sharapova, folks, and it seems she feels we’re making light of her Bond ambitions.
“I wanted to be a Bond girl all my life. With my Russian blood, I can be perfect co-star, and besides I’m very good at spying and manipulating people. I even manipulated you into doing stupid song. Don’t step on my dream or you will be sorry.”

Uhhh…. Uhhh… (Stop it teenage gushiness. Retreat. Stifle….) Uhhh. We’re sorry, Miss
Sharapova (Russian for lots of eggs to go around), we’re big, big fans (jock talk for groveling jock-sniffers… except technically, Maria doesn’t wear…) and if you want to be in a Bond movie, we’re all for it. So much so, Maria, (Broadway for sing and dance a song to this name if you want to really, really look gay) we won’t even do this article. We thought it was kind of cute, too.