Lawn Tennis
Can Venus Williams Move A Sports Drink?
By Tripp Mateschitz, Lawn Tennis Correspondent, Posted: Thursday, May 22, 2008 8:25am CST USA
Can Venus Williams Move A Sports Drink?, Powerade Zero
Photos by Ron Angle and Lawn Tennis
(lawntennismag.com)—We've seen celebrities and athletes in recent years endorse among other things automobiles, expensive jewels and athletic attire of course.

But after a recent endorsement of the new zero calorie PowerAde Zero sports drink by six time grand slam champion Venus Williams we were left wondering: can Venus Williams move a sports drink?


We set out to investigate. I asked several friends if they would be interested in buying Zero. “If it would make me as thin as she is,” seemed to be a popular answer. Williams at 6 feet, 1 inches tall and 160 pounds is all lean muscle, all arms and legs as she covers the tennis court.

Last week I went to one of my local markets and was pleasantly surprised to see they were offering the 32 ounces sized bottles of PowerAde Zero “thirst quencher” as they called it priced at only 15 for $10. So I snapped up 15 bottles in grape, mixed berry and strawberry flavors.

The check out lady informed me her son liked the grape flavor which would coincide with Williams' sound bite that she couldn't “keep it in my refrigerator; everyone takes them. Grape is my favorite. Purple is my favorite color, and grape is the best flavor, and that's the one that's always gone.”

Meanwhile back at home I put Zero to a taste test and was surprised by the appealing taste of it. All at once sweet and filling but without a sharp aftertaste associated with diet drinks, the Zero was quite delightful. And I'm in agreement, the grape does appear to be the most appealing of the three flavors.

PowerAde produced by Coca-Cola is the number two sports drink trailing only Gatorade. Williams is to endorse PowerAde Zero in print ads and drinks pink lemonade PowerAde on the tennis court, but said she'd wished for a lower calorie drink for offcourt workouts.

And so a week later now that my supply of Zero is all depleted I find myself thinking of going to purchase more.

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