The ongoing 2008 Sony Ericsson Championships women's tennis tournament in Doha, Qatar features some of the best female tennis players in the world. And whenever that happens, you can usually see posters all over the place showing off players like Ana Ivanovic, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova.
But not in Qatar. They're a Muslim nation, and have some different rules about showing "scantily clad" ladies. Instead of the normal WTA advertising posters, they have had to adjust, and use some different methods.
"Since it was the month of Ramadan, we met and we decided that it was better to have silhouettes and not to show players' legs and arms. We thought we had to adapt to the country and respect its habits and religion," Moroccan Karim Alami, the tournament director, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Tournament organizers had previously sent photographs of the girls wearing tennis clothes to the only advertising agency in Qatar, which is state-owned, and they were rejected.
That is why the tournament seeks to promote itself through posters that only reveal the players' purple silhouettes, with nothing that could be found to have sexual connotations.
Here are some more pictures of the ladies entering the court:
It Kinda Makes You Wonder What They Thought About The Ladies' Playing Attire:
Islam Sets Limits On Sensuality Of Female Tennis [Earth Times]
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