Her name is Elena Vesnina, and she is a 29-year-old professional tennis player ranked 50th in the world.

That doesn’t really matter to the Daily Mail though, because of more interest is the fact that she once posed for the cover of Playboy.

Tennis talk – she will face the machine that is Serena Williams, so you can expect her surprise run to come to an abrupt end.

Playboy talk – she posed for the cover of Russia’s edition of the magazine in March 2014, with the tagline ‘on the court you won’t see her like this’.

Fine, let’s see the pictures:

They are correct, you will not see her on the court like that.

More on Elena:

Miss Vesnina, who was 27 at the time, said in an interview inside that she decided to pose for the magazine because she ‘wanted to try it’ and because ‘it will all be shown in a very beautiful manner’.

Asked how her father Sergey, who is her coach, would react, she said: ‘He will go crazy when he sees that. But at least I told him that I’d be in Playboy. I didn’t take a risk to tell my mum anything.’

Talking about whether looks are important in tennis, she said: ‘There are a lot of pretty girls in tennis. But you also need strength, stamina, personality, charm and know how to show yourself. You also shouldn’t seem too prim a young lady, too good girl. A lot of supporters love sportsmen because they “catch” them with their personality.’

Preach girl, and best of luck trying to stop Serena from romping to the title.

[source:dailymail]