La Russophobe thought she had seen it all, but now Maria Sharapova has proved her wrong. The Moscow Times reports that Maria has announced that, as proper feminist, she believes women and men should receive the same prize money for professional tennis tournaments. Quoth Maria: "I believe women are strong, bold and powerful and deserve to be treated the same as men."

Ah. Well let's see then, shall we?

The top three female tennis players in the world are: Amelie Mauresmo, Kim Clijsters and Maria Sharapova. Between them, these three women hold three grand slam titles, one of which (Mauresmo's Australian Open crown) was won by default in the Finals.

The top three male tennis players in the world are: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and David Nalbandian. Between them, these three men hold nine grand slam titles, none of which were won by default.

The women have five tournament victories in 2006 between them. The men have eight.

In major events the men play five-set matches while the women play three-setters, so the men give the viewer twice as much show to watch. Anybody hear Sharapova volunteering to play five sets? Unlikely, since she's never even managed to win one big three set match in the crunch (famous for tanking), much less five.

Now, to be sure, neither Federer, Nadal or Nalbandian appeared recently in a women's magazine modeling swimwear, the way Maria did in the soft-porn Sports Illustrated issue, so that should probably count for some extra bucks (prostitution has always been a cash cow). However, this is counterbalanced by the fact that, as previously reported on La Russophobe, last year Sharapova played in 15 tournaments and lost 11 out of 15 final matches (three-quarters of the time) to a lower-ranked player. Maria hasn’t beaten a higher-ranked player in a final match since February 2005 when she beat world #1 Lindsey Davenport at Tokyo – well over a year ago – and she hasn’t reached a grand slam final since Wimbledon 2004, nearly two years ago. At the Nasdaq-100 tournament in Miami this year, known in tennis as the "fifth major," Maria played her semi-final match to a half-empty stadium and was booed off the court twice for poor sportsmanship. The same cannot be said of Federer, Nadal or Nalbandian.

In short, the very idea of Maria Sharapova claiming to be some sort of feminist is as disgusting to La Russophobe as the rule of Vladimir Putin over Russia.

Hey, Maria: If you want the men to take you seriously and earn their respect, maybe you should start by focusing your efforts on actually obtaining an interesting, compelling game you can play on the court, and actually winning some tournaments, instead of focusing it on demanding more money for nothing and taking off your clothes in SI to cover your shortcomings.