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This one's gonna last, really, just like the ones before
By SHARON FINK
Published February 6, 2005
TRUE LOVE, OR CLOSE ENOUGH FOR THE TIME BEING: The Australian media already are in hyperdrive over the engagement of Lleyton Hewitt and soap opera star Bec Cartwright.
What they are churning out can be divided into two categories:
The usual stuff: He got down on one knee to propose after losing the Australian Open final to Marat Safin , the Tiffany ring he gave her is said to be worth more than $200,000, the couple is negotiating with a magazine for an interview.
The spin stuff: So, the engagement comes less than four months after Hewitt's previous engagement to Kim Clijsters ended and about two months after Cartwright announced her breakup with actor Beau Brady , who played her husband on the Australian soap Home and Away until he was shot to death "senselessly by the deranged Sarah," according to a show guide, when Sarah "took everyone hostage" last year. But don't think that Hewitt, 23, and Cartwright, 21, are strictly each other's "rebound person."
Their management teams are taking pains to say that the pair actually met five years ago at a charity tennis event and "rekindled" their relationship "late last year" (which, news.com.au points out, was around the time that Cartwright was rumored to be infatuated with her partner on an Australian reality TV show, Dancing With the Stars, a ballroom competition that she and her partner won).
"(Hewitt and Cartwright) were instantly committed to each other" when they "rekindled," their agents said in a statement reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
TENNIS, ANYONE? ANYONE? Not all of Andy Roddick's Australian Open memories were negative. He had a nice winning streak at blackjack at a Melbourne casino. "I was down, now I'm up 600 bucks, so I'm pretty excited about that," Roddick said in a Bloomberg News report after winning to make the quarterfinals. "I've been trying to donate money to the casino, but it hasn't worked yet." . . . Serena Williams eventually got interested in talking about her game at the Open, but her early days were spent being more excited about the guest shot she taped for the Feb. 15 Valentine's episode of the UPN sitcom All of Us, produced b y Will and Jada Pinkett Smith . Williams said she played herself and her fictional assistant Wanda. "I really got to stretch my comedic roles," she said in an Associated Press report.
YA GOTTA HAVE YOUR PRIORITIES: The day after Met Mike Piazza' s Jan. 29 wedding to Alicia Rickter, a picture of him and his wife/Playmate/Baywatch babe/beer spokesmodel filled the front page of the tabloid New York Post, with the headline "Mr. and Mrs. Met . . . Piazza ties the knot."
At the bottom of the front page was a tease to the other big story of the day in Postland: "Dying to vote: Historic Iraq election."
IF ONLY THE REAL STORY WERE THAT INTERESTING: Joyce McKenney of Richmond, Maine, gets some strange looks because of her vanity license plate:
SXWIN04
She's a big Red Sox fan, so after the World Series, she requested something to communicate, in vanity-plate English, "Sox Win '04."
People who don't follow sports tend to ask why it says "sex, wino, four," McKenney tells the Associated Press.
Sharon Fink can be reached at 727 893-8525 or fink@sptimes.com
[Last modified February 6, 2005, 00:22:15]
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