Most of the excitement, such as it was, about last night’s poorly-attended match between the Washington Kastles and St. Louis Aces vanished when the main attraction, former star Anna Kournikova, was sidelined by a wrist injury. Or, at least, that would be true if the WTT was really about tennis, which it is not. Party tennis is right: the tour is obviously more entertainment than sport, focused on giving away T-shirts and Chipotle gift certificates and other such fun. Fans looking for an authentic tennis experience are advised, as always, to wait until next month’s Legg Mason Classic.

In any case, all Kournikova really had to do was show up — which she did — although she spent the entire evening in her black Aces warm-up suit. Kournikova, who went into semi-retirement from the pro game several years ago because of injuries and to market her other (considerable) assets, was never a truly great player. Although she may have become one in time, her celebrity vastly outpaced the medium of tennis. But there she was at the edge of the court, chewing gum, tossing balls to her teammates during warm-up, even sitting on the Kastles bench to chat with her team’s opponents. At one point, in an interview about what she liked about WTT, Kournikova responded with the boilerplate answer about seeing all five kinds of tennis matches in the space of three hours. She then added — apparently forgetting that the question came from a child interviewer — “And you get drunk, right?” Nice.