In a video posted on her website, this tall German lass explains how to go about the moves in three easy steps involving coordinated movements of the feet, the hands and the hips. It’s no surprise that she experiments her moves on her musician friend Phil Fill, who, incidentally, is also the composer of the Petko Dance number. She ends the video by asking viewers to post their versions of the Petkorazzi dance on her website.
In an age when female tennis stars are best known outside the court for their clothing and controversies, Andrea Petkovic brings in a whiff of fresh air into the game with her ‘Petko’ dance. Says Joy, who plays tennis at a South Kolkata club, “Guys love to ogle at female tennis stars but of late, there has been too much of ‘legs’ and ‘bare arms’ and, of course, short skirts that ride up and up. So it’s refreshing to see Andrea Petkovic twinkle-toe on the court. Not that she ain’t pretty. She has got a great face, she’s tall with a fab body too! I would call her a ‘jollier’ version of Maria Sharapova!”
Communications Manager at the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) and former journalist Kunal Kanti Ghosh recalls his favourite sports moment when Brandi Chastian, of the US Women’s Soccer Team, had celebrated her teams win over China during the 1999 Soccer World Cup. “It was a fun moment because Brandi had celebrated it by taking off her jersey on the field. It was probably the first time Indian audiences saw a sports bra! It was non-malicious and the gesture came from her heart. Petkovic’s dance too falls in that same category.”
Petkovic says that the idea of the dance was born out of a bet with her coach. “He had an idea after I played a terrible summer season in the US and I got Nadia Petrova in the first round of the US Open, which was a tough draw for me back then,” she said to the media, recently, adding that her coach asked her to do something special if she won the match. “I won 7-6 in the third, so I got the inspiration of doing a dance,” she said. And it’s been there ever since. “I’m very superstitious, so since I’m doing the dance, I’m playing much better.”
Better or worse, Petkovic has captured our imagination with her deft moves. Just don’t stop dancing, girl!
( Article first published in Calcutta Times, The Times of India, dated 30th Jan,2011,
Article republished in foxsports.com on 31st Jan,2011
Picture courtesy: http://www.andreapetkovic.de)
The ChakraView 