Tennis comes to the Asheville Civic Center tonight in the form of two matches. The headline match features Rajeev Ram vs. Rueben Ramirez-Hidalgo. The pro-am match features Ashley Harkleroad vs. MayaBlue Stauffer MacDowell, who lives here in Asheville.
That’s Harkleroad there on the cover of Playboy last year. She created quite a stir posing nude for the mag. Since then, she’s had a baby and has a new perspective.
The doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the exhibition starts at 7:30 p.m. While there’s no Andre Agassi here in Asheville (as initially planned), you still might go out and see some good tennis.
There are still tickets available. GrandSlamAsheville.com.
8 Comments
i had a chance to interview mayablue a few weeks ago. what a nice girl!
Sorry ’bout that, bb–kneejerk reaction after reading one too many complaints from people who don’t understand they can go elsewhere or write their own blog if they don’t like Ash’s.
Mike, I was doing a parody of the naysayer’s predictable, upcoming comments with a pre-emptive strike. I wasn’t actually making them myself, I thought that was obvious.
Whoever trained these guys on Sports Marketing needs to go back to school? No one showed up and the main guy was rude when speaking to the crowd. First words out of his mouth: "Well, not much of a turnout tonight!" P.S. the rest of his crew was to busy drinking! This could have been cool, if run with more class!
Jason, thanks for being better than bb and all the naysayers (what is so difficult to understand about "go somewhere else if you don’t like the content here"?). What other photo would be more appropriate for this post? The Playboy photo shoot is what makes her appearance at this event noteworthy, not the fact that she’s a player who used to be ranked #39 a few years ago. Heck, the promoter of the event was even quoted in the AC-T as saying, "We felt for a couple reasons she’d be good, but she does bring a lot of name recognition for more than just being on the tennis court." You don’t get booked to play against a local high school player (no matter how good she is) because your tennis game is your draw.
Just because the woman is a former playboy model doesn’t stop this from being news. Pro tennis in asheville with a player who posed in a magazine published world wide is worth knowing about. This has nothing to do with objectification. Although, if you ask me, Playboy is about female empowerment.
Eh, MayaBlue’s much better looking anyway.
Jason, you are better than this.. blah blah blah…bimbo cover models… blah, blah blah…. disrespect..objectification….real atheletes….. blah blah blah, etc.