It's happening. Leave aside, for a moment, Pete Sampras' quest for a 12th Grand Slam title. Forget Boris Becker's emotional farewell from the All England Club. It's the girls, maan, who are taking in all the limelight. It has come a long way from the days of the legendary Martina Navratilova-Chris Evert rivalry. Or the Steffi Graf-Monica Seles classics that played second fiddle to the men.

Now, it's all about variety. Kournikova's dresses and superbly-maintained figureis more important than her tennis. She is yet to win anything, but crowds flock to see her retrieving tennis balls from her knickers.

Martina Hingis and Kournikova play doubles together. And, in a way, they demonstrate the true calibre of women's tennis. Perfect amalgam of talent and glamour. It is not surprising that from next January onwards, the $72 million TV rights will be with Arnon Milchan, producer of the film `Pretty Woman.' Amidst such big money and pop star-like images are players from another era -- the Steffi Grafs, Jana Novotnas, Monica Seles and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicarios. It is almost as if they have become a sideshow to the big one running on the big stage.

Hingis showed glimpses of the kind of pressures that the teen brigade has to face, when during the final of French Open she walked to Graf's side of the court to dispute a line call and even served under-arm. Etiquette and good sportsmanship be damned. We set the rules, was the message. With just 45,500 pounds separating the men'schampion from the women (women's winner gets 409,500 pounds) here at Wimbledon, the line of thought that women's tennis has overshadowed men's in their own way may not be far off the mark, after all.

Observers agree that women's tennis is now more powerful than ever before. The change in racquet technology and of course the subtle use of steroids give the feeling that power tennis is no longer the domain of the men.

But then, it has always been driven by maniacal fathers who drive their daughters to excellence -- Graf was given one lollipop for every 100 accurate forehands -- and the burnout percentages have been phenomenal.

Yet, there was a certain elegance and delicacy to women's tennis all these years. If power takes over and the glamour reduced to off-court antics, some of the appeal is bound to go away. For every Kournikova, there will be hundreds more waiting to jump into the glamour train. If tennis suffers, surely nobody will shed more than some drops of tears. A far cry from the days whenwomen's tennis was wrapped in corsets.