Ashley Harkleroad is not the American Anna Kournikova --- yet.

Kournikova has not won a tournament on the WTA Tour. Harkleroad has not won a match.

Kournikova is the subject of more than 20,000 web sites. Harkleroad is the subject of one.

Kournikova is a British tabloid legend. Harkleroad was front-page news for a day at Wimbledon when a Scottish newspaper ran a picture of her stuffing a ball in her bloomers with the caption: "Ashley gives fans a thigh full."

It's a start.

"Everybody always says, 'You're going to be the next her,' " said the 16-year-old Harkleroad, who grew up in the northwest Georgia town of Flintstone. "It's not that I want to be like her; I just like to be compared to her. . . . I would like the attention."

Because of the WTA Tour's age eligibility rules, Harkleroad can play only nine more pro tournaments until she turns 17 in May. The U.S. Open is one of them, because the USTA has supplied a wild card to its most promising prospect for the women's tour.

Ranked No. 5 in the world among junior girls, Harkleroad has been noticed as much for her looks as for her tennis skills.

At the Australian Open, a Melbourne newspaper reported that off-duty ball boys were loitering wherever Harkleroad played. Also of note was that Harkleroad reached the girls semifinals, the best finish ever by a Georgia native at a junior Grand Slam.

In Paris, where Harkleroad made the semis of the French Open juniors, one journalist fell for the Kournikova stereotype and described Harkleroad as "somewhat haughty in her on-court demeanor."

The depiction was unfair, although Harkleroad was defaulted from one match this year for accidentally throwing her racket and striking a line judge.

At Wimbledon, Harkleroad reached the junior quarterfinals as the No. 1 seed. She left London with her first fan Web site.

Attracted to Harkleroad through articles and pictures he'd seen online, Lee Lopez, a college student in Gibraltar, launched his Ashley Harkleroad Web site (www.harkleroad.cjb.net) so he'd be the first.

Lopez, who also has sites for Kournikova and Jelena Dokic, said the site is getting 40 hits a day.

"Ashley is being compared to Anna in terms of looks," Lopez said, "but I think she will be more concentrated than Anna on tennis and not looks."

Harkleroad said the Kournikova comparisons began when she was 12 or 13. Harkleroad put a finger on her phenomenon last spring in Miami at the Ericsson Open, the only WTA Tour event she's been allowed to play.

"They just want there to be a Kournikova, but from the U.S.," she said. "I hope I can be that."

So does Nike. The sports apparel giant signed Harkleroad to a four-year contract Jan. 1, believed to be worth between $75,000 to $100,000 a year. It's the richest tennis deal for an untested young American woman since Venus Williams' first contract.

Nike sent Harkleroad to New York this summer to model the company's holiday apparel. Full-page advertisements featuring Harkleroad will appear this fall in Glamour, Elle, Shape, InStyle and Sports Illustrated for Women.

"I'm sure she's flattered by the comparisons to Anna, and it's well-deserved; she's a cute girl," said Mike Nakajima, Nike's U.S. director of tennis marketing. "But we sign athletes, period. If she wears it well, that's definitely a plus for us."

Dad's ambition

It's been a rapid ascent for the girl once known locally as Pebbles, the girl who hits like Bamm-Bamm. Flintstone is a town of 2,500, about 10 miles south of Chattanooga, and Harkleroad's parents grew up there.

Harkleroad's mother, Tammy, was a small-college tennis player, but it was her father, Danny, who pushed their only child to be a tennis star.

A former quarterback at Chattanooga, Danny Harkleroad introduced tennis to Ashley at 4. "My goal from the start was for her to become a professional tennis player," he said.

Heath Waters, who coached Harkleroad from age 9 to 14 at Ace Tennis Academy in Atlanta, remembers Danny buying his daughter tennis videos to watch in the day and audiotapes to listen to at night.

"Danny worked in a factory, and this was his ticket out," Waters said.

Harkleroad won the Easter Bowl's 14-and-under division at 12, the Southern 16s at 13 and the national clay-court 16s at 14.

"She was the best young junior girl with potential I had seen since Jennifer Capriati," said Seena Hamilton, the Easter Bowl founder.

The Harkleroads moved to Wesley Chapel, Fla., in 1999 with the enticement of a full scholarship at the Saddlebrook Tennis Academy, where Harkleroad is a frequent sparring partner with Capriati and Martina Hingis.

After she won the Easter Bowl again last year, this time in the 18s, Harkleroad became the youngest Georgia native ever to turn pro. She signed with with Artists Management Group, a Beverly Hills company that represents more movie stars than athletes.

"She's a new face, All-American, smart, the ultimate total package when you're looking for an athlete and trying to cross them over into business," said AMG's Jill Smoller, Harkleroad's agent.

Kournikova treatment

It didn't hurt Harkleroad's image last year that she was dating another teenage phenom, Andy Roddick. That eight-month relationship ended last year. Before last year's U.S. Open, Tennis Week ran a picture of Harkleroad and was the first to mention the link to Roddick.

Harkleroad justified the attention on the court, reaching the junior girls quarterfinals, but she also got the Kournikova treatment from some of her peers.

A copy of Harkleroad's picture from Tennis Week wound up on the main door to the players lounge, after someone had drawn a mustache, blackened some teeth and penned a nasty comment.

Lindsay Lee-Waters, a former world top-100 player who knew Harkleroad from her days in Atlanta, saw it and took it down.

"It's sad, but a lot of players, they want the attention, and when an up-and-comer is doing well, they get jealous," Lee-Waters said.

Harkleroad's return to the U.S. Open this week is full of potential. A second-round match vs. Venus Williams looms as a coming-out party, but first she must beat veteran Meilen Tu in the first round.